Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 12/21/23 Kit Klarenberg: The War in Ukraine Will End Like Afghanistan

Episode Date: December 24, 2023

Kit Klarenberg of The Grayzone was on Antiwar Radio to discuss the war in Ukraine. He and Scott talk about where the war stands right now and how the next phase will play out. They also discuss the ten-year anniversary of the 2014 coup. Discussed on the show: “Ukrainian trial demonstrates 2014 Maidan massacre was false flag” (The Grayzone) Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, you guys, Scott Horton here to remind you that it's fun drive time at the Institute right now. We only do this twice a year, but it's got to be done. And I'm proud to do it, too. We've got an incredible crew of the best writers, authors, and podcasters in the Libertarian Movement. From Jim Bovard, Lori Calhoun, Tom Woods, and Ted Carpenter to Keith Knight, Kyle Anzalone, Hunter Durenc, Connor Freeman, and all the rest of the guys. It's the best team around. We've published three books this year. Keith Knight's Voluntaryist Handbook, Lori Calhoun's questioning the COVID company line,

and Joseph Solis Mullins, the fake China threat. And here any day now, we will be publishing Thomas E. Woods' Diary of a Psychosis, Jim Bovard's Last Rights, and Keith Knight's latest, domestic imperialism. That makes 13 books so far, with more coming in the new year, including my new one, provoked how Washington started the new Cold War with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine, which I know is already overlong and overdue, but I'm working on it, I promise. And which brings me to the point, we don't have a big glass office building in downtown Washington. The money we raise goes straight to payroll and book production costs, and that's about it.

The Libertarian Institute is the best bang for your buck in the movement. If you believe in what we're doing, please go to Libertarian Institute.org slash donate for detail. on how you can help keep us going into the new year and the great kickbacks we offer as well. And we thank you for your support. For Pacifica Radio, December the 21st, 2003. I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio.

All right. you all welcome the show it is anti-war radio i'm your host scott horton i'm the editorial director of anti-war dot com and the author of enough already time to end the war on terrorism you can find my full interview archive almost six thousand of them now going back to 2003 at scotthorton.org and at youtube.com slash scott horton show and all your various podcatchers and video sites and so forth. And you can follow me on Twitter, if you dare, at Scott Horton's show. All right, introducing today's guest. It's a great journalist from the Gray Zone, Kit Clarenberg. How are you doing, Kit? How's it going, Scott? I'm doing real good. I appreciate

you joining us on the show here. And you write so much great and important stuff. And I have a book that I've been working on for a very long time now about the new Cold War. with Russia and you're in it a bunch because I cite you all the time because of all the great work that you do a lot on all different issues, including on Bosnia and all kinds of stuff. Anyway, I got lots of stuff to talk with you about. Let's start with your piece about the 10th anniversary of Obama's overthrow of the government of Ukraine and how that all came about. And you have an article specifically on the snipers, but let's go ahead and just talk

about overall events of 2013 and 14 here and the prequel to the mess we're in now. I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned the Obama administration because I think that, yes, while the Maidan, the revolution of dignity or indignity, as is becoming increasingly clear, what did occur under the Obama administration? And indeed, it was orchestrated by the National Endowment for Democracy. This is the US's regime change agency. It does overtly what the CIA once did covertly. It's founders a very open about that. Actually, this came at a time when the Obama administration was attempting, however poorly, to peacefully coexist with Russia. And actually, it was the people pushing for all-out war

with the Kremlin were people who were effectively in opposition like John McCain. However, there is a British role in all of this, which has never been properly investigated or exposed. I'm working on it now. But in effect, there were a large number of British military and intelligence opposites who saw Medan as an opportunity to effectively do what they did in the wake of World War II and create a bander state in Ukraine to undermine. Russia. There is an individual called Chris Donnelly, who he ran an organization called Integrity Initiative. This was a British intelligence black propaganda operation, which was concerned

with spreading, damaging fake news about Russia in order to demonize Moscow in the eyes of Western citizens and diplomatically isolate the Kremlin, therefore leaving them no other option than war in Ukraine. They're very open about this. They stated it on their website. that it will be necessary to put pressure on neutrals, quote, unquote, and flood the world with propaganda, and yes, diplomatically isolate Russia, and then this will lead to war of the old-fashioned, so that the West will inevitably win.

These people are completely insane, and we're seeing the failure of their attempt to take down Russia, unravel on fields of eastern Ukraine, as we speak. As I noted on Twitter, to the amazement of many, There is currently a Russian government jet parked in Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. This has not been reported on or acknowledged by any of the legacy media because, of course, they don't notice any of these things, or if they do, they know to keep quiet about them. But I strongly suspect that this is the terms of Ukraine's betrayal being dictated to the White House by senior Russian government officials.

And given that they are now heading for war in Yemen, I think that the – that – that it's going to be a most receptive audience, and Russia's going to probably get given and granted everything that they want. But yes, I mean, the article that you mentioned, this is really quite remarkable. There was a trial in Ukraine, which was, at least ostensibly,

attempting to get to the truth of what happened on in February 2014, when there was a massacre of protesters in Maydan Square. The government of Ukraine from the world, word, post-Madan undertook a wide variety of efforts to prevent this being looked at. They deliberately blocked official investigations. They passed laws giving amnesty to all Maydan protesters for any crimes that they may have committed.

So, I mean, that's basically a non-starter. But begrudgingly, due to Western pressure, a tort case was launched in 2016. And it's just, it's just terminated. And the finding was that three Ukrainian police officers were convicted in absentia, i.e. they're not in the country because Zelensky traded them for people held hostage by the Dombat separatists in 2019, that one was convicted of being an accessory, although he was sentenced to time served because he'd effectively been on tag and at liberty, but, you know, while being tried. And another police officer was acquitted of all charges. No one was remotely happy or thought credible the findings of the verdict in Ukraine itself. And there were a number of prosecutors stated that, yes, it was a total whitewash. And no one's going to be held accountable for this.

However, the entire Western media either ignored this finding or reported it as they were all convicted. This is like an outright lie that multiple media. your organizations told that they that all of these officers have been convicted and we're now going to face jail. That's not true. The reality is, and this was spelled out in the million word long verdict that actually a lot of shots provably came from Hotel Ukraina, which at the time was the base of operations for Svobodo, which is a far right Ukrainian neo-fascist party. are multiple international media sources. Both Italian and Israeli documentaries have spoken to Georgians, two Georgians who claim to have been the snipers on the day who were posted

in Hotel Ukraina by Svodod, and specifically told to shoot protesters to stir up the crowd because at that time, the protests had largely run out of steam. There was an attempt to remove Yanukovych by, via a vote of no conference. confidence which failed. And it was effectively there was a risk that he was not going to be successfully overthrown by the street protests. So they just decided in the manner of so many other US regime change operations such as Venezuela and also Syria, the early days of the Syrian revolution, there was snipers picking off protesters to stir up crowds and create tension with authorities. And this is the same thing that happened when Hugo Chavez was temporarily

overthrown in Venezuela in 2002. So it's a tried and tested tactic and it unfolded in Ukraine. Yes, we are seeing what that created, which was a anti-Russian far-right state, a collapse under the weight of its own contradictions in Ukraine as we speak. It looks like Zelensky and his top general are trying to kill each other at this stage. There was a recording device was found in Zaloonzi's office. It wasn't the Russians that put it there. And so, yes, it is kind of final days. It's Hitler in the in the in the, in the, in the furor bunker having a meltdown, you know, surrounded by enemies. I think that the terms of the peace that a quote unquote peace that the the US will allow or impose on

Ukraine, it's going to be absolutely brutal. I suspect that the Russians want Kharkiv and No, Dasha, Putin made this clear very clear the other day. I mean, the Russians are negotiated position of total strength. They have effectively disarmed most NATO member states. They are not running out of missiles. They're not running out of tanks. Sanctions have done nothing. And Ukraine, meanwhile, is mobilizing women because they're rapidly running out of men to throw into artillery fire. So, yeah, I mean, all around, it's a complete disaster. I have been warning people that this is what's going to happen for a very long time. I've largely been laughed at and I just continue to be vindicated on each and every point. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan

provides a very clear blueprint for Ukraine's betrayal. There is a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction on the collapse of the Afghan government, which is very, very interesting. It got no, it was released at the start of this year, I believe, it got virtually no, or indeed, just simply no media coverage whatsoever. Its contents are fascinated, no, and it's very, very clear that the US was setting up the Afghans for total betrayal. They knew very, very well that the government wasn't going to survive, that the military and security services that they'd spent a very long time constructing an enormous, expense to U.S. taxpayers was going to disintegrate like sugar and hot tea the second that they left. And that's exactly what happened. And I mean, in an amazing excerpt, the Ghani, their puppet in Kabul, was specifically told that by senior U.S. officials that we are leaving. We are, we're

leaving and we're not coming back. And he didn't believe them because he thought that Afghanistan was so geopolitically significant and the Americans had expended so much blood and treasure trying to dominate it and create an effective colony there that they weren't going to leave. So they made no preparations for the eventual departure because they thought it wasn't going to happen. And then it did. And then within the span of a few days, the entirety of the nature created Afghan government ceased to exist. It was no longer a thing and Garney was on a plane to the UAE where he's not been heard from ever since. And Afghanistan has effectively not spoken about in the media. Now, this is exactly what's going to happen to Ukraine. I mean, maybe Zelensky will make his way to

Miami or if he's not killed first by one of his inner circle, perhaps with the CIA's direct order. But, yeah, people will be amazed at much like a show of fish moving all at once without apparent direction. The entire media is going to just start looking the other way. I saw today very sad news, actually. There is a website called Open Democracy, which has a Russia desk, a Russia and Eastern Europe desk, which produced some very, very good content and reporting on the ground in Eastern Europe. They're closing down now. And they were funded by George Soros and NED because, ooh, they don't want people.

looking at what's happening in Ukraine anymore, because it no longer serves American interest for that to happen. Yeah. Hey, y'all, Scott here. Let me tell you about Roberts & Roberts Brokerage, Inc. Who knew? Artificial bank credit expansion leads to price inflation and terribly distorted markets. If you've got any savings left at all, you need to protect them.

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That's Libertasbella.com. All right, it's anti-war radio. I'm Scott Horton talking with Kit Clarenberg. Boy, is he easy to interview. On that last point, I noticed, or somebody else did, and I saw the tweet about it, Kit, that the Washington Post took down their banner headline

or their banner link, the war in Ukraine. Look the other way there. But so we got a lot to go over, but we gotta start with you contradicting me and you're only partially right but not really but Barack Obama had a policy of trying to get along with Vladimir Putin

but that's not the same as the Obama administration and in fact Robert Perry at Consortium News at the time thought that one of the major impetus is for the neocon policy in Ukraine

was to prevent the budding chumminess of Obama and Putin over Syria. If you'll remember in 2013, Putin and Obama had made a deal that America would destroy all of Syria's chemical weapons in order to stave off the invasion, which Obama didn't really want to do at the time. And so Robert Perry thought that this was one of the main reasons

that the neocons did what they did in Ukraine was just to make sure to nip this coexistence with the Russians in the bud and make sure to stay at opposing force there. And, you know, it's interesting, isn't it? And I don't know enough about this. But John Kerry's name is very absent from the story of the Maidon Revolution. But Vice President Biden's name is right there in the mix with the lower levels of the State Department led by Victoria Newland pushing for the regime change there. So it is a very interesting dynamic about what was going on.

It looks a lot like insubordination, but Obama's still the man in the chair. And so it's his responsibility if Robert Kagan's wife is getting away with bloody murder on his watch, either way. Yes. Well, I mean, I think that Syria is an interesting one because I think that Russia effectively preventing a U.S. invasion. I mean, of course, it's forgotten that Putin brokered the surrender of Assad's chemical weapons. stockpiles. And yeah, the neocons were absolutely furious. I mean, and also as well, like, I mean, on the ISIS point, you know, this is, it's crazy that people have just forgotten, by and large, forgotten about ISIS. The CIA and MI6 created a mini caliphate that had

its own passport and its own currency and its own license plates. And, yeah, like, traded with Western countries as a country. And then when it span out of control, because of course, these complete lunatics, the CIA and M.I.6 have been financing and assisting, getting over to Syria to take down Assad, wanted to take over the world and thought that this was plausible and were like beheading women and stuff. And it was pretty bad for PR to be associated with them. So yeah, they tried to put the toothpaste back in the tube and failed miserably. And then Russia came along and destroyed this many caliphate they've created. They were really angry about that

because only they get to destroy the caliphate they created. Yeah, and I think that also that the American dishonesty and Western dishonesty and just a bad faith action in Syria was really convinced Russia that there was no way that they could have a constructive relationship with the West because they saw the destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999 by an illegal but legitimate was the phrase but bombing campaign they saw them do the same in Libya and they saw them try to do the same in Syria they were just they the US and it's

international lackeys particularly Britain thought that they could just go around the world just overthrowing leaders destroying countries because they wanted to or because they were trying to access a country's resources at low cost and they wouldn't that Russia was not only extremely unhappy about this from a philosophical perspective, but also was extremely worried about the same being done to them. You know, I have, Belgrade is a city, which, I mean, it's a beautiful part of the world and much under-traveled to, but the legacy of war is still here 25 years on. There are bombed-out buildings. It has the highest cancer rates in the world. It has the scars of NATO bombing, you know, remain very, very, very fresh and people are going to be

living with the consequences of that for decades, you know, and it's like, why I have a friend here who specifically said to me, I think it was in 2015, he said, well, they're doing to the Russians now what they did to us, which is, yes, you know, like, sanctions, relentless demonization in the media, which is like manufacturing consent for destroying. them and Russia decided it had enough and and lashed back and I think that yes that this is a very interesting point in in world history I mean the the empire is avowedly concerned about all of the money it's spending on missiles to shoot down drones flown by the Houthis which cost a thousand dollars to make they're spending millions to bat away drones like this could turn

out into all-out war very, very easily. And I think that if the U.S. is convinced that the Houthis are a soft target, I mean, they're sorely mistaken. They lived under the genocidal Saudi bombing for the best part of a decade, you know, targeting fishing boats, targeting markets and churches just to get them to yield. And they didn't back down. I know. So hold it right there. I actually just interviewed my buddy Nasser Arb, a reporter out of Sana'a, all about that. But we got to see. stick on Ukraine here for a minute because time is short and there's so many topics here. But of course you're right that this is something obviously people got to keep their eye

on the threat of regional war there in the Middle East. But I wanted to ask you what you're saying there. We skip almost the whole war all the way to the end where yeah, Ukraine's lost it. And just like you and a lot of people have warned all along that just time and power are on Russia's side here. And that just is what it is. We can throw all the money at it. We won. It can only go so far and all this talk about reclaiming every square inch of the Dombas and all this has always been a fantasy. It was always only the question of are they really going to keep all four provinces or not. But now you're telling me, you're certain they're going to demand, I think you said based on something Putin said recently, that you think they're going to demand the city

of Harkiv and Odessa, which they have not taken or even tried. Well, they surrounded Harkiv there for a while. And then the Ukrainians took that land back in September of 22. But they never have gone so far as to do more than hit Odessa. They haven't landed a force there and attempted to take that land at all. But you're saying you think the Russians are going to demand the entire southern coast, including Odessa, in their terms here? Oh, of course. Absolutely. I mean, I think that Russian leaders are remarkably forthright in terms of setting out what they want and what they're willing to do to get it. When Putin in February 22, in the days leading up to the invasion, he openly stated what Russia's objectives were in Ukraine, which was,

was of course, demilitarization, denazification. But this is something that people rather miss is decommunization. And he explicitly stated that, well, Ukraine is pulling down all of these statues of Lenin and they talk about decommunization. And he said, well, that suits us, but you must not stop halfway. And what he meant by that is that there are historically Russian territories in Ukraine, which were given to Ukraine by communist leaders. So like Lenin, Stalin, and Khrusha, all effectively created the modern Ukrainian state. I mean, the very name Ukraine means borderland.

Ukraine was the borderland of Russia for centuries. And places like Odessa and Kharkiv are historically Russian. I mean, you know, Zelensky himself couldn't speak Ukrainian before he became president. And there is a large number of people there who see themselves as Russian. And it's one of the reasons that this is perhaps the most widely forecast war in history. Because it was well understood that by effectively ending the Soviet Union without any discussion about its borders, of the borders of these new countries that were created by the dissolution of the USSR. that it created all sorts of problems.

It effectively created states out of what were administrative units. Well, arbitrary lines on a map which were related to grain distribution, suddenly became binding national borders. This is one of the reasons that the post-Madat government gave the Kremlin such a fright was that they immediately, some of their first acts were to rename the road leading up to Babaya, Stepan-Vandera Highway. And also, yes, scrap language rights for Russians, which effectively made an enemy or a discriminated against minority out of something like half the population. You know, there are a great many Ukrainians who speak, no other language than Russian.

And yes, they were born in and grew up in lands that were historically until very, very recently in the scheme of things, Russian territory. And so, yeah, I mean, in that, that objective was set out quite clearly before the war started. In a recent speech, Putin referred to Odessa as historically Russian territory, which is as good as signal as any as that's what they've got their eyes on. Now, an interesting historical precedent for this, which many people might forget, is that the 1995 Dayton Accords, which brought the Bosnian. in civil war to a close. In effect, the Bosniaks, the Bosnian Muslims, who the US had been using as a proxy up until that time and funneling vast, unaccountably vast amounts of weapons and money to in secrets and completely illegally and breached the UN embargo via CIA black flights. The Bosnian Muslims were expecting the US to effectively back them in the

Dayton Accords and give them all of Bosnia's territory and trample over, the kind of steamroller over Bosnian Serb and Serb and Yugoslav government demands. This belief meant that they refused to engage in peace negotiations throughout the war. There were a number of attempts by the Yugoslav government by the EU and the UN to achieve a negotiated settlement, which despite the fact they were losing pretty badly throughout the Bosnian Muslims refused. Because their negotiating position was, we're not giving you an inch because they thought that NATO bombs would come and then they would get everything they wanted. And as it happened, they got thrown under the bus brutally.

The Serbs were given more territory than Slobodan Milosevic considered fair or humane. Including, said Brunitsa and Zepa, which in all the previous deals, the Muslims got to keep. But in the final deal, nope, the Serbs get them. And including, of course, the horrible massacre, although it wasn't quite as horrible as they embellished, but pretty close in Srebrenica to finish that exchange of territory there. It's just a catastrophe. I happen to be writing that part of my book right now. It is. Yeah, but it's just that's the thing. That's the thing, is that they got the, they were expecting all sorts of indulgences and support from the US, which wasn't there. And then the US effectively said to them, well, you know,

You have no negotiating position. Your economy is just completely trashed. And we got an election coming up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've got an election coming up. So you have to accept everything, everything that we're imposing upon you, or we're just going to pull out the rug from under you and leave you at the mercy of the Serbs. And in the words of one of the Bosniak negotiators, we signed dating with a gun to our heads.

And it's like, yeah, they have no choice. And it's exactly the same in Ukraine. Ukraine has been carrying out a silent campaign of shock therapy neoliberalism at US behest. It has destroyed employment rights for the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians. It has privatized. It has made their country safe for Black Rock and Monsanto, as safe as it can be. Now, in that context, the U.S. well, it needs at least some Ukrainians still alive to allow the economy to function.

And it also probably wants to head off future disputes with Russia. So in that context, I think there would be very forthcoming in terms of what they give the Russians. I've seen many people, again, you know, kind of mock me for suggesting this. If you look at just basic historical precedents, which are very recent, even though nobody's heard of them, of course, that, yeah, the blueprint is there for a mass betrayal. And yes, the Russians have made clear that they're not going to stop fighting until they feel that their demands are met. Of course, because this war has been costly for them, but not as costly anywhere near as costly as the media would have had you believe a few weeks back. Their objectives and their definition of victory has become enlarged, you know.

And it's like, I mean, they're already just even the four territories that they've formally annexed and they are going. to be holding presidential elections in very, very soon. That's not enough for them yet. It is also they're sitting on 65% of Ukraine's pre-war GDP because there's an enormous amount of resources and, you know, there's lots of lithium there and all sorts of like precious metals and it's not for nothing. Ukraine was considered the breadbasket of the union. So they've got all of that and Ukraine has nothing.

Now, again, I'm sorry, we're out of time here, but you're right. I mean, that's always been the question since the war broke out two years ago. Are they going to take the whole country? Or they're going to leave the land west of the Nipa River? Or they are going to go as far as Odessa or not? And they may have a hell of an insurgency on their hands either way. But hopefully the Americans are heading toward the exits here. But I'm sorry, we're just out of time for the show today.

But this is Kit Clarenberg, everybody, at the Gray Zone. And he does so much great work over there. You guys have got to keep up with. what he's doing. That's the grayzone.com. Really appreciate your time on the show. Cheers, Scott. Take care. All right, you guys, and that is Anti-War Radio for today. I am your host, Scott Horton. Find me at anti-war.com and at Scottwharton.org. And Merry Christmas. I'm here every Thursday, from 2.30 to 3 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. See you next week.

Thank you.