Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general convicted of massacring 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, died this week at 83. But his words on destroying Sarajevo without admitting it are a masterclass in how to commit atrocities while gaslighting the world. "We musn't say that we are going to destroy Sarajevo. We are not going to say that we are going turn off the water supply, but... well, one day there is no water in Sarajevo... We must wisely tell the world it was they who were shooting" This is the playbook. Do the thing. Don't announce it. Blame the other side. Let institutional inertia do the rest. He got away with it for years. The wars took a decade to get prosecuted.