And also: people with excellent "left" credentials, such as Susan Sontag lived in Bosnia for reasonably lengthy periods of time and felt there was a commitment to multi-ethnicity from the government there.

quote:

---

Why have so many on the Left accepted Yugoslavia as the 'good'
war of NATO against the evil Serbs then opposed the invasion of Iraq ?

---

It's a very good question. It's a question that's been haunting me of late. 1999 was a really screwed up year.

I think there are several answers.

There was tremendous mystification about what exactly was going on. The idea that genocides were taking place on the level of Naziism was a common idea at the time. Many think that the Balkans are just full of insane people. The dynamics of the collapse of Yugoslavian Communism were not predictable. Reliable information was difficult to ascertain.

The NATO participants were virtually all led by social democratic or centre left governments. It was an opportunity for Clinton and Blair to show their manhood. Internal oppositions to these governments were unformed. The accidental upset in Seattle, which opened uo wider opposition, was six months after the NATO attacks.

Left opposition to the war was very weird. A lot of leftists ended up trailing Serb nationalists. Some of these sections of the left were pro-Milosevic, whiles others tried to avoid the issues.The current I was involved in explicitly supported the rights of the former Yugoslavia's nationalities and for their rights to statehood. I tend to think that virtually everybody on the left was wrong.

The other error that leftwing opponents of the war made was in thinking that a Vietnam situation was going to transpire. I think most opposition groups saw a protracted war happening with the imperialist forces taking massive casualties. We were wrong.

[ 07 July 2004: Message edited by: DrConway ]

Serbia is now the most multi-ethnic among the former republics (not to whitewash the Serbs)

Blake wrote in his interesting post " It's a question that's been haunting me of late. 1999 was a really

screwed up year."

The Bosnia conflict was in the first helf of the 90s. Here's the part of my letter THIS magazine didn't print:

G. Knezevic's article (Taking Sides) omitted so many essential facts. The Izetbegovic government in Sarajevo, that her paper generally supported, was essentially Muslim and received considerable military support from Islamic groups (now labelled terrorists) from outside Bosnia. Osama Ben Laden had visited Sarajevo. Izetbegovic was the author of an important document (Islamic Declaration - republished in 1990) calling for a Muslim state. Bosnian Serbs had painful memories of the Muslim SS during the Nazi occupation and didn't want to live under Muslim rule. At least one of the massacres in Sarajevo was staged to discredit the Serbs, according to UN observers. In fact it was Izetbegovic who turned down, with U.S. encouragement, an early plan, not unlike the Dayton Accord, which might have avoided war, and who withdrew his army from Srebrenica after its fighters had terrorized the surrounding Serb villages. These facts are largely ignored in the West, although not by the likes of John Pilger, Robert Fisk, and Regis Debray. Not a word of any of this in her very partisan attack on General MacKenzie and the U.N.

quote:

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And also: people with excellent "left" credentials, such as Susan Sontag lived in Bosnia for reasonably lengthy periods of time and felt there was a commitment to multi-ethnicity from the government there.

---

quote:

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There can be no peace or coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic societies and political institutions. - From "The Islamic Declaration".

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quote:

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No one credible thinks that was true of Serbia, or Croatia, or (now) Kosovo.

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quote:

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...
Article 15.

In the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbian language in its ekavian and ijekavian dialects and the Cyrillic script shall be official, while the Latin script shall be in official use as provided for by the Constitution and law.

In regions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia inhabited by national minorities, the languages and scripts of these minorities shall also be in official use in the manner prescribed by law.

...

Article 20.

Citizens shall be equal irrespective of their nationality, race, sex, language, faith, political or other beliefs, education, social origin, property, or other personal status.

...

Article 23.

Every individual shall have the right of personal freedom.
No one may be deprived of his liberty except in cases and according to the procedure laid down by federal law.
Every person taken into custody must be informed immediately in his mother tongue or in a language which he understands of the reasons for his arrest, and he shall be entitled to demand that the authorities inform his next of kin of his detention.

...

Article 46.

Members of national minorities shall have the right to education in their own language, in conformity with the law.

...

---

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

The best hope for the people of the former Yugoslavia was to have had the terretories remain in a federation, failing that, a negotiated (not unilateral) breakup.

Nobody cares that Izetbegovic was an extremist, because he was 'our' extremist.

[ 09 July 2004: Message edited by: clearview ]

[ 09 July 2004: Message edited by: clearview ]

Clearview seems to believe that citations from the Yugoslav constitution will tell us something about the realities on the ground, and that Susan Sontag, who lived there for several years, cannot.

I'll take Sontag.

----
As for the "famous" quote, above, I don't see a citation. Is this something that we should just take on faith? Unfortunately, in former Yugoslavia, lots of people make lots of stuff up.
Give us your best cite.
-----
To me, it is interesting that all of the pro-Serbian propaganda includes some idea about "Islamic" government. During the war, they'd always make a big to-do about it. But I never saw a single policy which would make me think Bosnia was any more Islamic than any other country which has Islam as a majority religion, and perhaps less.

quote:

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In 1970, Izetbegovic´ published a manifesto entitled The Islamic Declaration, a work which contributed greatly to his later portrayal as an Islamic fundamentalist. He highlighted the decayed state of Islam and called for an religious and political regeneration across the Muslim world, although the book made no reference to Bosnia. In two particularly controversial passages, he declared that "there can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic social and political institutions" and that "the Islamic movement must and can, take over political power as soon as it is morally and numerically so strong that it can not only destroy the existing non-Islamic power, but also to build up a new Islamic one". He promoted the idea of a "united Islamic community" in which non-Muslims would have their rights guaranteed.

From an Islamic point of view, this was nothing new - many similar manifestos were circulating in the Muslim countries - and it was very much in accordance with traditional Koranic principles. It was also not a programme of Islamic fundamentalism in a sense that is generally understood by fundamentalists themselves: Izetbegovic´ explicitly accepted innovation and the "achievements of Euro-American civilization." He spoke approvingly of the high educational and economic standards prevailing in the West and urged that "instead of hating the West, let us proclaim cooperation instead of confrontation." However, his pro-Islamic arguments were fundamentally at odds with both the anti-nationalist ideology of Communist Yugoslavia and with the later nationalist ideologies of Croatia and Serbia, which emphasized both nations' Christian heritage. Islam was widely perceived by non-Bosniak Yugoslavs as an alien influence introduced under the Turkish occupation, so Izetbegovic´'s call for an Islamic revival came to be seen as a threat by many in the countries' Catholic and Orthodox communities.

---

Full article

It would be more like hatchet-job thinking to rely on that.

quote:

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Originally posted by jeff house:
The question we are attempting to address is the relative tolerance of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, and Kosovo.

---

Rikardo asks: "Why have so many on the Left accepted Yugoslavia as the 'good' war of NATO against the evil Serbs then opposed the invasion of Iraq ?" Your answer was: "One reason is that the other side thinks that using the phrase "Muslim-dominated" is an argument." I see, the other side is confused about what makes an argument, therefore bombing them into economic ruin is 'good'.

quote:

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Clearview seems to believe that citations from the Yugoslav constitution will tell us something about the realities on the ground, and that Susan Sontag, who lived there for several years, cannot.

---

quote:

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I'll take Sontag.

---

quote:

---

----
As for the "famous" quote, above, I don't see a citation. Is this something that we should just take on faith? Unfortunately, in former Yugoslavia, lots of people make lots of stuff up.
Give us your best cite.
-----

---

quote:

---

To me, it is interesting that all of the pro-Serbian propaganda includes some idea about "Islamic" government. During the war, they'd always make a big to-do about it. But I never saw a single policy which would make me think Bosnia was any more Islamic than any other country which has Islam as a majority religion, and perhaps less.

I think it was just an attempt to push Western fear-buttons.

---

Maybe what they think is more important than what you or I think. Shall we give the peasants that much? Or shall we tell them that their being guilty of 'hatchet-job thinking' is part of why we drop bombs on them?

[ 11 July 2004: Message edited by: clearview ]

[ 11 July 2004: Message edited by: clearview ]

While it is true that Alan Greenspan once wrote a Randian type article in 1966, and since then has grown out of that rather infantile Objectivist crap, his basic outlook still seems to be molded in the individualism-above-all cant of Ayn Rand's work.

For example, in the vein of the gold-standard nuts, he favored inflation control over unemployment, although never to the obsessive extent of Canada or Germany, and has spoken rather frankly about "wage flexibility" and other code phrases meaning keeping labor from getting too uppity.

So people can and do change over the years, but I think it is more than likely that parts of their basic outlook remain bedrock and nearly immovable.

[ 11 July 2004: Message edited by: DrConway ]

Sarajevo was not chosen to host the Winter Olympics by accident. It was the living embodiment of the Yugoslav ideal, the most tolerant, multiethnic, cultured city in the country. But the internal tensions of Yugoslavia rising in Serbia, Croatia and elsewhere -- in my opinion pushed most of all by the revival of radical Great-Serbia nationalism and its desire for a larger share of power in what was supposed to be a multi-ethnic state -- also led to a defensive revival of "Bosniac" assertiveness. Izetbegovic was one of the thinkers in this movement, which located itself also within the global movement for the reform & revival of Islam. What i've read about him second-hand suggests that his argument boiled down to: we are Yugoslavs, yes, but we are also Muslim, a community in our own right.

Izetbegovic seems to have wanted a multi-ethnic state, a "community of communities" (to borrow Joe Clark's phrase) with full rights for the Muslim community as one of the constitutive elements. Once Croatia & Slovenia left, the Yugoslav rump seemed certain to be Serb-dominated, and he chose an independent and multiethnic Bosnia & Herzegovina in which Bosnian Muslims would be the largest group. Faced with a Yugoslavia controlled by the likes of Slobodan Milosevic, it's an understandable choice, even though it left Serb democrats even more isolated to the detriment of the multiethnic ideal in the remnants of Yugoslavia.

But -- and here's the tragedy -- Bosnia fell into genocide as each ethnic community felt threatened and turned to violence for reasons that seemed to them like self-defence. This was a process led by some real nasties, but it carried along many people who used to preach a multiethnic ideal.

I really recommend Maggie Helwig's recent novel Between Mountains. One of her charcters is a Bosnian Serb who goes from being a professor of English literature to a murderer, step by step moving from being a civilized person into becoming a man who carries out ethnic cleansing. That's what happened to so many (not all, but so many) in Bosnia. Izetbegovic, i think, was probably one of those people, part of the dehumanization that happened and the spiral into genocide carried out by the most powerful group.

quote:

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Originally posted by clearview:
If Izetbegovic was committed to a multi-ethnic society, why the desire to break away from Yugoslavia? I mean, what benefit is their to a multi-ethnic Bosnia that didn't exist in a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia?

---

Not having to deal with Milosevic stepping into the Tito-vacuum and filling it with atavistic nonsense about 1489 and Serb chauvinism.

Also recall that the Bosnians were the LAST people still loyal to the federal system because they owed their position as a seperate 'nation' to the classifications set up under Tito. There was hardly a shred of Muslim/Bosnian 'nationalism' until after the Serb armies walked into Bosnia with ill-intent. This was, of course, after they had failed to intimidate the Slovenes into sticking around for the inevitable collapse. This is also after the infamous ten days of trying to look intimidating while staring uphill at Slovene-manned artillery when the Serb army turned directly around and headed for Croatia.

Even after all of that most Bosnians thought that the army would protect them during the ensuing Bosnian land-grabs by Serb and Croatian forces and instead they got Arkan and the boys shooting up their houses and the Serbian army staking claim to Bosnia on behalf of an already much-less-than-multiethnic 'Yugoslavia', re: Serbia. At that point "Yugoslavia" had come to mean little more than "Whatever Milosevic could get his paws on..."

Why not ask why the Slovenes got out? Because the gettin' was good. The system was a shambles: bankrupt and without any clear direction. Constitutional crisis had left legislators completely paralysed and Milosevic was the first guy to seize on nationalism as a tool to break the stalemate. His ability to get Macedonia and Montenegro onside, and to seize the votes of the autonomous provinces (Vojvodina) for himself gave him an unbreakable majority in the LCY and on the presidency committee.

Remember the timeline: Izetbegovic was hardly a factor until long after the nationalism nonsense of Milosevic and Patriarch Pavel that kicked off in 1986-7. Already at that point, Milosevic had loosely allied himself with the locus of Serb nationalism - the Serbian Orthodox church - and began deliberately (through the old state-dominated media) to drum up Serbian nationalism over the Kosovo issue and other mostly-forgotten 'historical' grievances. In other words, he had already attempted to use the centralised state apparatus which had become looser and looser over time under Tito, to foment a Serbian and 'Communist' hegemony.

He had already crushed the Albanian workers' rebellions and nationalist movements to secede citing Serbian claims, and with little more than passing acknowledgement to 'Yugoslavian multiethnicity' as his motivation. Granted, there was a period in which the Socialist-Serbian nationalism cobbled together by the old Praxis ideologue, Markovic, was hot on the tongues of Milosevic and his cronies. That particular strain of thought is still evident today: it somewhat paradoxically posits the Serbs as the "true" Communists behind Yugoslavia (as against those Croatian Ustache, the decadent Slovenes, and the backward Shipts [Albanians]) and as the guardians of the Yugoslav multiethnic ideal.

When this hodge-podge "leftist" rhetoric was introduced Slobodan and his speeches never seemed that extreme - they always played just enough to 'multiethnicity' and other socialist parlance to keep both the international community and a lot of leftists at bay.

Milosevic left the strong chauvinist talk to Seselj and positioned himself as the 'good cop' against a Serbian ultranationalist 'bad cop'. This bought him time with the international community. However, some in Bosnia, Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo and elsewhere could easily apply the dictum - Deeds not Words, and figure out his intentions which they largely experienced at gunpoint.

Unfortunately, many on the left are still believing Markovic's tripe and continue to hold to the dream of Yugoshangrila....

[ 11 July 2004: Message edited by: Courage ]

Izetbegovic was jailed sometime around 1983 over a controversy regarding promotion of a Muslim nationalism. Now, I don't think he should've been jailed, but he was, and it wasn't the Serb nationalist movement of the late 1980's that travelled back in time to influence him.

The Yugoslav Army, not the Serb army, was in Slovenia. Infact, many soldiers in the army at the time refused to be sent to Slovenia as reinforcements. The disintigration of the Yugoslav army saw weapons and barrack picked up by mostly Serbs and Croats, and some by the Muslims in Bosnia. Saying 'Serb armies' does not make the it Serbian, nor does it increase the army from one to many. You even refer to the army as separate from Serbian and Croatian forces yourself.

The funny thing about the Serb army in Bosnia is that it is and was made up of Bosnian Serbs who's families had lived on the land for centuries. Yes, there were outside paramilitaries acting for all sides in the area, and they should be charged and punished for any crimes they are guilty of, just as the regular armies should be. The Bosnian Serb Army was made up of Bosnian Serbs. They did not 'march into Bosnia', they were born and grew up there.

Indeed, the system was in shambles, but that doesn't change the fact a Muslim nationalism existed in Bosnia well before the trouble started. I don't ask about the Slovenes, because there is no one on this board claiming that the Slovene government was committed to a multi-ethnic society in an attempt to downplay any crimes committed by them.

You yourself say that the system was in shambles and paralyzed before Milosevic seized on it as an opportunity to gain and maintain power. And yet somehow we're supposed to ignore those engaged in nationalism before that even though they lead a nationalist government in breaking away.

All the sources would agree that atrocities were committed by all sides. But all the sources also agree that the main culprits were Serb forces, whether paramilitaries or the Serb-controlled Yugoslav Army. We seem to forget how Serb forces time after time after time after time violated UN agreements and overran UN safe haven zones set up to protect innocent civilian populations. We all know what happened to the civilians in those zones.

The UN Tribunal on Yugoslavia has prosecuted individuals from all factions in the conflicts and found many of the accused guilty of various criminal offenses whether war crimes, mass rape, or crimes against humanity. The evidence, so far, is that the vast majority of the atrocities were committed by the Serbs.

There is an ugly historical revisionism afoot in some circles which seeks to rehabilitate the Milosevic-run Yugoslavia. I always look at the documentary record - including the record of war crimes trials in the Hague. The evidence presented at those trials is now part of the proven historical record of what happened during the years 1991-1999. And based on the proven record, the Serb forces' shelling of hospitals and execution of bed-ridden patients, their running of concentration camps, their mass killings of prisoners, their use of rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing will live on in memory as examples of infamy for a long time to come.

[ 13 July 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

[ 13 July 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

quote:

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There is an ugly historical revisionism afoot in some circles which seeks to rehabilitate the Milosevic-run Yugoslavia.

---

Most definitely. While there is NO doubt that each and every one of the leaders have partial responsibility for what happened, it is a "juvenile disorder" to make much of the Muslim influence on Bosnia, and avoid the much worse level of intolerance in Serbia and Croatia.

I am glad one of our posters, above, is able to obtain his information direct from "the people";
in my experience such is a hopeless abstraction allowing one to claim anything whatsoever.

I don't need Sontag - although her writings help understand the stakes in the war.

And before someone tries the revisionist argument that the UN Tribunal is a NATO tool:

a) Croats and Muslims have also been found guilty of war crimes, including running camps

b) the Tribunal was set up by the Security Council before NATO ever became involved

c) there would no International Criminal Court everyone seems to like so much without the precedent of the Yugoslavia Tribunal - it's the model

d) the Tribunal also established many novel precedents such as i) rape as a war crime ii) commanders are guilty if they don't stop atrocities by their underlings (willful blindness is aboloshed as a defence) iii) the Geneva Convention protection must apply to civilians even if they are victims at the hands of people of the same nationality - in other words, civil war victims are finally protected by the Geneva Conventions iv) crimes against humanity can be committed for purely personal motives - in other words, one no longer has to prove discriminatory intent, that is, persecution for racial, ethnic, or religious reasons

To attack the Tribunal is to attack its precedents, i.e. to argue that it is illegitimate to see rape as a war crme or that civilians should be protected when there is no international war going on but only a civil war. That's the logical conclusion. If the Tribunal is illegitimate as revisionists argue, so its decisions must also be illegitimate

[ 13 July 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

The ICC would have arrived on the scene without the ICTY. It simply needed the approval of a certain number of member of the General Assembly of the UN. Why did the US which set up the ICTY resist the ICC ?

Did Sontag speak with people in the Serb and Croat regions of Bosnia or was she simply fed stories, like so many journalists, by Bosnian Muslim foreign minister Haris Siljadjic the source of many inflated victim counts. Her son David Rieff called Sarajevo "our Spain".

Rape has always been a crime. What about bombing innocent civilians ?b One rape in one too many but this was a civil war. And where were the 30-50,000 Muslim rape victims alleged by the Bosnian Muslim government ? Final UN figures were more than ten times lower, too many of course, and including Serb women raped by Muslims or Croats.

quote:

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The "Hague Tribunal" was set up, not "by the UN" but by its Security Council where the US and the UK have 2 of the 5 vetos. It was drafted under Madeleine Albright's instructions. The U.N. Charter does not authorize such ad hoc tribunals. It is funded by the U.S. and mostly NATO countries. Can it be impartial ?

---

Whenever the travails of the former Yugoslavia arise, this line: "Milosevic can't get a fair trial!" is not far behind.

While I am sure that Rikardo has more knowledge of the UN Charter than does the UN Security Council, the logical next question is "If there is reason to believe Milosevic committed crimes, where should his trial take place?"

The answer: "Serbia" will not do. Presumably, "Kosovo" is a non-starter, as is "Bosnia".

De facto: the judges are elected by the General Assembly of the UN. So the largest gathering of the world's diplomatic representatives under the UN Charter agrees the Tribunal is a good thing they should cooperate with. And all Balkan parties have accepted the jurisdiction of the Tribunal.

De jure: the Tribunal was created under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The Tribunal was set up after reports by a Commission of Experts (created by Security Resolution), a report of the committee of jurists submitted by France to the Security Council, the report of the commission of jurists submitted by Italy to the Security Council, the report submitted by the Permanent Representative of Sweden on behalf of the Chairman-in-Office of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe as well as comments from dozens of countries, mos of them in favour. The Secretary-General also received favourable comments from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Criminal Police Organization, Amnesty International, Association Internationale des Jeunes Avocats, Ethnic Minorities Barristers' Association, Fédération internationale des femmes des carrières juridiques, Jacob Blaustein Institution for the Advancement of Human Rights, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, National Alliance of Women's Organisations (NAWO), and Parliamentarians for Global Action.

There is no debate about the legitimacy of the Tribunal from any serious legal or political circles.

In the 1990s, the world lived through what has been called the "human rights revolution", one of whose principles is that no one is above being held to account. Another principle of that revolution is that national sovereignty is no longer an excuse for abuses or atrocities. Another is that ordinary people, through NGOs like the Red Cross and Amnesty, will demand that the guilty be hunted down and punished.

Where there is a revolution, there is always a "counter-revolution". The attacks on the UN Tribunal system (in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Sierra Leone etc.) seem to be a major part of this counter-revolution.

[ 14 July 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

It is one thing to say rules of this or that particular international tribunal are wanting (in clarity, or procedural fairness, or in some other vein). Many commentators have drawn attention to budgetary or personnel or training inadequacies that are being gradually fixed.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rikardo:
The "Hague Tribunal" was set up, not "by the UN" but by its Security Council where the US and the UK have 2 of the 5 vetos. It was drafted under Madeleine Albright's instructions. The U.N. Charter does not authorize such ad hoc tribunals. It is funded by the U.S. and mostly NATO countries. Can it be impartial ?

---

The UN Security Cuncil is empowered to do this. If uit's invalid, so is the ad-hoc Nuremburg tribunal, one of the most important developments in international law of the 20th century. There can be no doubt that the General Assembly would also authorize the ICTY if it came to a vote. No country has challenged it, and note also that the General Assembly gave unanimous consent to the selction of Louise Arbour as Human Rights Commissioner. The tribunal has UN support.

It's an insult, really, to human rights activists to say that the tribunal they (we) worked for was dictated by Madeleine Albright. It was the culmination of years of effort by NGOs, and that campaign is not invalidated simply by the fact that the US government supported it in the end. US government support was a response to campaigning by human rights groups. Somtimes, years of lobbying succeed.

The ICTY is mostly funded by NATO countries, sure. But who should fund it? The government of Botswana is a little short on cash. The source of funding does not automatically discredit anything. Are all Canadian courts simply tools of the Canadian government that funds them? That's the Steven Harper theory: the Liberals stacked Canadian courts to get their same-sex marriage agenda through. It's a wacky tin-foil hat theory in that case, and it's just as wacky when made on the international level.

quote:

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The ICC would have arrived on the scene without the ICTY. It simply needed the approval of a certain number of member of the General Assembly of the UN. Why did the US which set up the ICTY resist the ICC ?

---

Again, the US did not set jup the ICTY. Certainly there is a double standard in US policy, and the US is the world's number one enemy of international humanitarian law. The same activists that fought for the US to support the ICTY continue to fight for it to support the ICC. I'm confident that this fight, too, can be won in time.

quote:

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Rape has always been a crime. What about bombing innocent civilians ?b One rape in one too many but this was a civil war. And where were the 30-50,000 Muslim rape victims alleged by the Bosnian Muslim government ? Final UN figures were more than ten times lower, too many of course, and including Serb women raped by Muslims or Croats.

---

The ICTY has made a considerable legal advance in defining rape as a weapon of war as an international war crime. International human rights lawyers can explain why this is so vital, if you're actually interested in the advance of humanitarian law rather than only in the revisionist defend-Milosevic campaign.

Human Rights Watch

quote:

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No leaders of the terrorist KLA are yet to be indicted by the ICTY.

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It's important to note that the bulk of work in Kosovo is being carried out by mixed tribunals (an attempt by the UN to respond to the criticism that there is no local involvement in the ICTY). More importantly, it's simply not true that no-one from the KLA has been indicted.

" revisionist defend-Milosevic campaign."

"revisionist" is a word to de-legitimize other versions of events that the one you believe. It is ammunition in the battle of True Believers against Skeptics. History is continuously revising itself.

To question the ICTY is not to defend Milosovic. He is doing that fairly well himself although the ICTY seems to want to force him to name a defence lawyer. The obvious question is: Why were the Croat Tudjman and Bosnian Muslim Izetbegovic not "indicted war criminals" By escaping indictment they have been judged INNOCENT by the so-called "International Community". Only the Serb political leadership and by extension the majority (not all) of the Serbs have been indicted. NONE of the KLA leaders has been indicted. The Human Right Watch article refers to only 3 or 4 field combatants. And this after more than five years.

Bosnian Serb Karadzic was indicted in 1995.

Human Rights Watch is not some universal and neutral God. It is American (founded by an American citizen) and also European staffed and financed. It is a vital part of the New World Order as were the Missionary Societies in the Nineteenth Century important to the Era of Colonialism (The White Man's Burden). Its very name, English only, symbolizes Western Anglo-American Hegemony. Its difficult for a self-confident educated Westerner to see this.

As for the ICTY. All the wide acceptance that it apparently has doesn't mean it isn't funded largely by NATO and Muslim countries. "Who pays the piper, calls the tune".

Someone referred to Nuremburg. Didn't that tribunal, set up by the victors, rule that agression of a sovereign state is a crime ?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rikardo:
quote:
" revisionist defend-Milosevic campaign."

"revisionist" is a word to de-legitimize other versions of events that the one you believe. It is ammunition in the battle of True Believers against Skeptics. History is continuously revising itself.

---

History doesn't revise itself, people do.

I've had very mixed feeling about NATO stepping into Kosovo without prior UN approval, but I ended up supporting that particular intervention, for the sole reason that NOt intervening would likely have led to another Bosnia style "ethnic cleansing". Fact that the KLA manipulated and lied about the extent of it at that point (which mainstream sources later admitted) doesn't change the likelyhood of it happening again without outside military intervention.

However unfair it may seem to you, it was the Serb dominated Yugoslavian military that was largely responsible for those wars, it was Serbian paramilitaries who committed the vast majority of atrocities, mass murder, mass rapes, mass deportation, and it was Serbian leaders like Miloscevic and Karadzic who ultimately bear the greatest responsibility.

quote:

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To question the ICTY is not to defend Milosovic. He is doing that fairly well himself

---

Oh please. The only reason to criticize the ICTY (which compares favourably to most Canadian courts) is because YOU want to defend Milosevic.

Milosevic is defending himself by claiming he is too sick to participate in the trial. And he won't name a representative, either!

They will see that they are based on evidence against particular individuals, not political preference.

In the Milosevic case, the charges cover a lot of terrain. He may be acquitted of some charges (if the process can ever get around his deliberate obstructionist tactics and come to an end) such as those of genocide which are hard to prove, but be found guilty of war crimes which are easier to prove. The atrocities mentioned in the indictment have been proven to have occurred. The prosecution will have to prove that he, as commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav Army, and as the ultimate controller of Serb paramilitary forces and/or Bosnian Serb forces, knew of those atrocities and either authorized them or did nothing to prevent them or to punish the perpetrators after the fact.

It is a very fair trial and the judges have been very accommodating. His strategy is to turn it into a circus.

Doesn't matter. Even if there is no guilty verdict, history books have proven facts to write up, facts now proven in open court in previous trials, such as the existence of concentration camps under the command of his forces or the command of allies supplied and funded by his military and the commission of massacres by forces under his command or supplied by him. Morally guilty if not legally so.

So the Serbs are the Nazis and the rest are more or less innocent victims. As Bill Clinton said

"the government of Serbia, like that of Nazi Germany, rose to power...."

Cratia'sTudjman, Muslim Bosnia's Izetbegovic, Thaqi and the rest of the KLA leadership are innocent (according the the ICTY)

Just as the Versailles Treaty put all the blame for the First World War on the Germans now the so-called "International Community" and THIS magazine places all the blame on the Serbs.

The ICTY being funded by Germany and the USA, NATO and the Muslim countries, even if it tries, it cannot be neutral. Suppose our provincial courts were funded by donations from members of the Chanber of Commerce, instead of by all our taxes. Would you trust it in a case dealing with a conflict between a corporation and its workers?

Perhaps the best source on Yugoslavia is the film, carried

by the History Channel: "The Avoidable War" Two books to read, of many,

are Diana Johnstone's "Fools' Crusade" (Monthly Review Press), "the

outstanding Left analysis of the Balkans" - Edward Herman, and Philip

Corwin's "Dubious Mandate", a superb, first-hand account of how the West

subverted and abused the UN force in Bosnia, using the peacekeeping

mission as subterfuge for intervention. Also important is "Balkan

Odyssey", by Lord David Owen, the frustrated British negotiator who

vainly tried to mediate between the warring factions in Bosnia while

both the western media and the American government did their best to

make him fail.

quote:

---

"the

outstanding Left analysis of the Balkans" - Edward Herman,

---

Edward Herman was co-author of the egregiously nonsensical Canadian Dimension article which claimed that Louise Arbour (now the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) was a war criminal because she indicted Milosevic.

He's not credible on this topic at all.

-------------------
You also seem to be unable or unwilling to proceed beyond black and white stereotypes.

No one seriously thinks Tudjman was an ok guy; he was a war criminal too, just like Milosevic. He was lucky, and died before he could be indicted.

The only reason to traffic in these stereotypes is to try to mobilize Serbian opinion: "They say only Serbs are at fault."

Most people don't. Myself, I think Milosevic and Tudjman were both way over the line in terms of what they ordered or allowed to happen.

[ 19 July 2004: Message edited by: DrConway ]

But seriously, even if people tend to think Serbia was the only bad guy, when in fact it was the worst of a motley crew of bad guys, so what?

Should that be an argument against trying Milosevic for what he did?

In my reading of most babblers' contributions to these discussions, they are trying to think as good historians. That is: they are far less interested in deciding who is the worst offender, thereby excusing lesser offenders, and more concerned with establishing the facts, all the facts, no fear or favour to any "side," etc etc etc.

I am, eg, frankly appalled that anyone who questions the wisdom and politics of the NATO assault on Serbia should be accused of being a Serbian apologist, and maybe worse. There are lots of good reasons for questioning the way that the West dealt with Kosovo, and not everyone who does deserves to run into accusations of spooky sectarian affiliation that have been raised here.

Sometimes, some of us just don't think that the U.S. is the right bully to be doing these things, eh?

And beyond anyone's political loyalties, it is indeed important that everything that happened be recorded, that no crime against humanity be excused for political reasons.

quote:

---

Originally posted by skdadl:

I am, eg, frankly appalled that anyone who questions the wisdom and politics of the NATO assault on Serbia should be accused of being a Serbian apologist, and maybe worse. There are lots of good reasons for questioning the way that the West dealt with Kosovo, and not everyone who does deserves to run into accusations of spooky sectarian affiliation that have been raised here.

Sometimes, some of us just don't think that the U.S. is the right bully to be doing these things, eh?

---

quote:

---

I am, eg, frankly appalled that anyone who questions the wisdom and politics of the NATO assault on Serbia should be accused of being a Serbian apologist

---

Yes, that would be wrong if it happened. But the initial post was about how "Muslim extremist" Bosnia was being whitewashed by "the left".

Well, those are code words. There was nothing extremist about Bosnia, although Muslims do live there. Treating the President of Bosnia as if he were a clone of Osama Bin Laden is an egregious slander, and it is one which has been repeatedly made by the Milosevic support group.

Later posts established that the poster doesn't like the ICYC, or the trial of Milosevic, either.

To me, his primary interest was in pointing fingers at anyone except Serbia. To me, that isn't "history".

-------
The reasons given for the Nato bombing of Serbia were very dissimilar from the reasons given for invading Iraq.

In the Serbia/Kossovo case, there was an ongoing human rights emergency involving the deportation of people on the basis of their ethnicity. If true, this would be a war crime. Although there has been some effort to claim that the Kossovars came streaming out of their homes by the thousands BECAUSE OF Nato bombing, I do not believe this. They themselves say that they were responding to Yugoslav Army regulars who gave them 6 hours to leave or be killed.

At any rate, there has been no demonstration that the reason given for the war was a lie. There have been counterclaims, but not proof.

In the Iraq case, George Bush's message to Congress requesting war authorization speaks of two things: WMD; and the probability these could be given to Al Quaeda. I presume that we can agree that each of these reasons has been proven to be utterly false.

It is true that "he gassed his own people!" was part of prewar propaganda; but the rights of Iraqis were never given as the reason for the war until after the other reasons collapsed. While Saddam was a brutal dictator, nothing in particular was occurring in March 2003 which would have justified a "human rights war".

I agree with you that the US must not ever be allowed to determine on its own who is guilty of human rights abuses such as to require military action.

[ 20 July 2004: Message edited by: jeff house ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jeff house:

It is true that "he gassed his own people!" was part of prewar propaganda; but the rights of Iraqis were never given as the reason for the war until after the other reasons collapsed. While Saddam was a brutal dictator, nothing in particular was occurring in March 1993 which would have justified a "human rights war".

---

quote:

---

I'm still a bit worried, though, about where to draw the line. Once we've set the precedent that human rights violations inside a sovereign state are legitimate grounds for war, how do we decide which human rights violations are bad enough to justify intervention?

---

This will always be a legitimate question. And in general it is the UN which should do the intervening, not self-chosen Messiah-lands.

In the Yugoslav case, the idea that it was a "sovereign state" had frayed pretty far by the time of Kossovo. In reality, on the ground, there were competing states, with competing armies.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rikardo:
"it was the Serb dominated Yugoslavian military that was largely responsible for those wars"

So the Serbs are the Nazis and the rest are more or less innocent victims...
Cratia's Tudjman, Muslim Bosnia's Izetbegovic, Thaqi and the rest of the KLA leadership are innocent (according the the ICTY)...
Just as the Versailles Treaty put all the blame for the First World War on the Germans now the so-called "International Community" and THIS magazine places all the blame on the Serbs...
I'm afraid the break-up of Yugoslavia is too complex for many Western Christian minds with their need to indentify the Evil.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rikardo:
Perhaps the best source on Yugoslavia is the film, carried by the History Channel: "The Avoidable War" Two books to read, of many, are Diana Johnstone's "Fools' Crusade" (Monthly Review Press), "the outstanding Left analysis of the Balkans" - Edward Herman, and Philip Corwin's "Dubious Mandate", a superb, first-hand account of how the West subverted and abused the UN force in Bosnia, using the peacekeeping mission as subterfuge for intervention. Also important is "Balkan Odyssey", by Lord David Owen, the frustrated British negotiator who vainly tried to mediate between the warring factions in Bosnia while both the western media and the American government did their best to make him fail.

---

quote:

---

...because I didn't want to see this barbarism happening yet again.

---

One word - DARFUR.

Unfortunately, the world (and Babble) spends more time debating which Palestinian nationalist or Israeli nationalist said what in 1933 or 1957 or 1985 than reacting to extreme crimes in front of our eyes.

(Not that I want the Israelis to continue their illegal occupation or the Palestinians to continue their suicide bombings but it is a low intensity, relatively stable predictable conflict cmpared to genocide in Sudan)

"Do any of these sources explain the massive and systematic gang rapes...."

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rikardo:
Quote (from Eric the Red)
"Do any of these sources explain the massive and systematic gang rapes...."

Yes they do, and the number of rapes (of course one is one too many) was overstated by a factor of 10, and the 2-3,000 rapes occured on all sides. Bosnia was a civil war, quite possibly provoked and certainly exaggerated by European and US intervention.

---

"they overlook the fact that the US and EU tried to broker

over three dozen truces which were immediately broken, usually by the

Serbian para-militaries"

Quote from "Rikardo"

Philip Corwin's "Dubious Mandate", a superb, first-hand account of

how the West subverted and abused the UN force in Bosnia, using the

peacekeeping mission as subterfuge for intervention. Also important is

"Balkan Odyssey", by Lord David Owen, the frustrated British negotiator

who vainly tried to mediate between the warring factions in Bosnia while

both the western media and the American government did their best to

make him fail.

It was American oposition to the Vance-Owens plan (in late 1992 ) that undermined the UN and European diplomats repeatedly. Lord Owens said (in an interview you can see in the film "The Avoidable War") that the Serbs were ready to accept this plan even though it rolled them back by over 20% of territory. Finally Dayton, imposed by NATO and the US, lead to a result similar to the first plan proposed by the EU in 1992, accepted by all but Izetbegovic and the USA

On the questtion of rapes Do we believe the Bosnian Muslim government's Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzik who said on US television "We are talking about rape camps in which 14 to 30 thousand women were raped and are being raped as we speak" or the final UN report of 2-3000 rapes on all sides. Of course, one is too many.

Quote from "Jeff House":

No one seriously thinks Tudjman was an ok guy; he was a war criminal

too, just like Milosevic. He was lucky, and died before he could be

indicted.

quote:

---

The ICTY had plenty of time to issue an idictment to Tudjman

---

I saw the Bosnian Muslim government's Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzik say on US television "We are talking about rape camps in which 14 to 30

thousand women were raped and are being raped as we speak". The UN figure of 2-3000 on all sides seems more reliable.

Nice try Rikardo.

[ 26 July 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

At least get your facts straight.

As I wrote above, there has been a "human rights revolution" in the past 10 years. And where there is a revolution, there is always a counter-revolution ready to use any argument, no matter how groundless, as ammunition.

Thanks to this revolution, people who were up to now unaccountable can be held accountable. This was achieved by NGOs and normally powerless ordinary people worldwide who forced their governments and the UN to create the tribunals. Not the other way around. Milosevic and others are on trial, not because of Clinton or NATO or the UN but because ordinary citizens have had enough.

[ 26 July 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

I think it's undeniable that the great powers have been following their own interests. It's hardly a surprising discovery: they always have. But their interests change over time, and the fact that great powers are following their own interests does not negate the fact that there really HAS been a human rights revolution in which non-governmental organizations have campaigned for something and achieved it, forcing governments in many cases ot reverse their former policies. The idea for international criminal courts on ex-Yogoslavia and other areas is not one invented by NATO; it is one invented by NGOs which lobbied NATO governments and forced them to take the policy on board. Does that make NATO altruistic? Hardly. But it does mean that the NGO movement for accountabilty and international justice won a victory. The next step on this campaign is to universalize the rule of international law -- getting the US to accept that it is bound by the International Criminal Court, for instance, or get Indonesia and its backers in China to stop preventign an international tribunal on East Timor.

Where is the evidence that the ICTY was intending to indict Tudjman or Izetbegovic ? Only the Serb political leadership has been accused and indicted. Some Croat generals, yes.

A good student of history is a sceptic and looks behind the pronouncements of the politicians.

quote:

---

Originally posted by clearview:
[QB]Ah yes, Serb nationalism was the first and only nationalism in the former Yugoslavia, and all other nationalisms were a reaction to it. Convenient frame, too bad it distorts reality too much to be helpful.

Izetbegovic was jailed sometime around 1983 over a controversy regarding promotion of a Muslim nationalism. Now, I don't think he should've been jailed, but he was, and it wasn't the Serb nationalist movement of the late 1980's that travelled back in time to influence him.

---

This is irrelevent. The question is about the saliency of nationalism as a political instrument. In fact, your example is instructive - in 1983 'nationalism' was a crime. By 1987 it was the new way of doing things. The first politician to seize on nationalism as a reaction to the crisis of the federal system was Milosevic. Quite simply, my point wasn't that there weren't 'nationalists' around, there certainly were, but it was Serb nationalism that was the first consciously articulated 'nationalist' political programme. It also had the strength of many of the federal institutions behind it once those institutions were played into Milosevic's hands. It was key to the breakup of the system.

quote:

---

The Yugoslav Army, not the Serb army, was in Slovenia. Infact, many soldiers in the army at the time refused to be sent to Slovenia as reinforcements.

---

Yes, and a great many of those who refused were not Serb. Coincidence? Hardly. The refusal of many to take part in the action against Slovenia was a direct consequence of the political situation, and the perception that Milosevic et. al. were attempting to use the old Communist hegemony (and all it's trappings and institutions) to enforce a Serb hegemony over Yugoslavia. The march on Slovenia was (rightly) perceived by many as the first effort of Milosevic to create a civil war in which Serbia could expand it's real estate and political power within what would remain of Yugoslavia.

Moreover, please simply ask anyone from Yugoslavia (who is honest about these things) about who was in charge of the army all those years. The fact is that despite Tito's efforts to ensure that the officer corps had representatives from all the constituent nations, Serbs had dominated (numerically and politically) the military heirarchy and the common ranks from WWII on. In fact, it was often a point of pride for Serbs (or a bone of contention) that while most of the good manufacturing jobs were in Croatia and Slovenia, the Serbs made up the army. They were the protectors, the 'tough guys'.

quote:

---

The funny thing about the Serb army in Bosnia is that it is and was made up of Bosnian Serbs who's families had lived on the land for centuries. Yes, there were outside paramilitaries acting for all sides in the area, and they should be charged and punished for any crimes they are guilty of, just as the regular armies should be. The Bosnian Serb Army was made up of Bosnian Serbs. They did not 'march into Bosnia', they were born and grew up there.

---

It was not only the 'Bosnian Serb Army' operating on Bosnian soil, but what had formerly been the 'Yugoslav' army. Moreover, where exactly do you suppose the Bosnian Serb Army was getting all it's weapons and material support from? You guessed it, Belgrade. To insist that there was some sort of different set of interests between the two and niggle over the use of the words (marched in) simply occludes the most relevent facts.

quote:

---

You yourself say that the system was in shambles and paralyzed before Milosevic seized on it as an opportunity to gain and maintain power. And yet somehow we're supposed to ignore those engaged in nationalism before that even though they lead a nationalist government in breaking away.

---

He wasn't leading that government at the time that all this developed. Look at the time line. Izetbegovic did not get into any position of power until the elections held in 1990. Heck, he was in jail until 1988. In the meantime, the "they'll never dare beat you again" speech had been made in Kosovo, and the massive nationalist rallies in Vojvodina (Novi Sad to be exact) had already dissolved that province's multiethnic parliament and put it under the control of Serb nationalist representatives. The same programme was implemented in Montenegro, and the Kosovo Assembly had already been unilaterally eliminated by Serbian legislators. This is all BEFORE Izetbegovic even saw the inside of a political office.

In short, the argument is not that Izetbegovic had never had nationalist thoughts before Milosevic, but that Milosevic created conditions in which Izetbegovic's nationalism became acceptable and desirable to Bosnians.

[ 10 August 2004: Message edited by: Courage ]

quote:

---

You confuse the ICTY and the ICC. The later was promoted by NGO's like World Federalists, the former, ad hoc, was a creation of the Security Council (3/5 of permanent members are NATO) specifically to judge the participants in the Yugoslavia war (except NATO).

---

This characterization has now become an accepted fact, an issue beyond

debate. It makes U.S. motives seem unimpeachable and on the side of good

against evil.

An April 1993 interview by Jacques Merlino, associate director of French

TV 2, with James Harff, director of Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, a

Washington,

D.C.-based public relations firm, explains the role of the corporate

media in shaping a political issue.

Harff bragged of his services to his clients, the Republic of Croatia,

the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the parliamentary opposition in

Kosovo, an autonomous

region of Serbia. Merlino described how Harff uses a file of several

hundred journalists, politicians, representatives of humanitarian

associations, and academics to

create public opinion.

Harff explained: "Speed is vital ... it is the first assertion that

really counts. All denials are entirely ineffective."

In the interview, Merlino asked Harff what his proudest public relations

endeavor was. Harff responded: "To have managed to put Jewish opinion on

our side. This

was a sensitive matter, as the dossier was dangerous looked at from this

angle. President Tudjman was very careless in his book, ŒWastelands of

Historical Reality.¹

Reading his writings one could accuse him of anti-Semitism. [Tudjman

claimed the Holocaust never happened‹S.F.] In Bosnia the situation was

no better: President

Izetbegovic strongly supported the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic

state in his book, ŒThe Islamic Declaration.¹ "Besides, the Croatian and

Bosnian past was

marked by real and cruel anti-Semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews

perished in Croatian camps, so there was every reason for intellectuals

and Jewish organizations

to be hostile toward the Croats and the Bosnians.

Our challenge was to reverse this attitude and we succeeded masterfully.

"At the beginning of July 1992, New York Newsday came out with the

article on Serb

camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big

Jewish organizations‹the B¹nai B¹rith Anti-Defamation League, The

American Jewish

Committee and the American Jewish Congress.

In August, we suggested that they publish an advertisement in the New

York Times and organize demonstrations outside the United Nations. "That

was a

tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the

side of the [Muslim] Bosnians we could promptly equate the Serbs with

the Nazis in the

public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia. The

great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which

African country

Bosnia was situated.

"By a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys

and bad guys which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting the

Jewish audience.

Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press,

with use of words with high emotional content such as ethnic cleansing,

concentration camps,

etc., which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of

Auschwitz.

What is required of the 'left' to support this hypocrisy is an Orwellian paradigm shift wherein the overt attempt to destory Yugoslavia as military and economic entitity begining with the collapse of the Soviet Union is completely ignored, when conisdering the event in the Balkans in the 1990's.

quote:

---

One reason is that the other side thinks that using the phrase "Muslim-dominated" is an argument.

---

Identifying Izetbogovic an the secessionists as 'muslim' would seems more problematic than it is were it not for the fact that Izetbogovic overtly proclaims a muslim link to his ideological view, as do his supporters. Decrying usage of this self-defined ethnic 'identification' while blithely identfying pro-Yugolslav Bosnians as ethnic Serbs is of course typical of double think needed to justify the attack upon the people of the Balkans by the UN/NATO/USA.

Odd that anyone even questions this 'muslim' identification when US support for various Islam-based politcal organizations has been overt tool of US destabilization policy targeting their 'socialist' enemies for the last 30 years, including Afghanistan, Chechnya and Yugoslavia. Would I be called out for being a latent bigot for noting the Islamic nature of the US fostered Taliban?

[ 30 August 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

As an aside, one of the worst results of this Saudi support, IMO, was the renovation of old Ottoman-era mosques decorated in the ornate Ottoman style. These mosques (along with local tekkes [Sufi gathering places]) also contained a 'decorative record' of the Sufi influence in "Western" Islam - particularly the Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya orders. These were completely re-arranged and re-done in the Wahabbite style which is extremely stark and against the 'corrupting decadence' of the Ottoman styles. A real shame, actually.

Anyway back to the problem faced by leftists over the NATO bombing. Sure, there were those in the West who wanted to do away with Socialist Yugoshangrila, but they really only seized on what was already considerable internal tumult. The two phenomena are not necessarily opposed. As Slavoj Zizek has warned us, we must remain "Against The Double Blackmail". That is, we have to resist the notion that "if you are against NATO strikes, you are for Milosevic's proto-Fascist regime of ethnic cleansing, and if you are against Milosevic, you support the global capitalist New World Order," and ask this question, "What if this very opposition between enlightened international intervention against ethnic fundamentalists, and the heroic last pockets of resistance against the New World Order, is a false one? What if phenomena like the Milosevic regime are not the opposite to the New World Order, but rather its SYMPTOM, the place at which the hidden TRUTH of the New World Order emerges?"

[ 30 August 2004: Message edited by: Courage ]

The defend-Milosevic camp is touting this excerpt as a stunning expose of how the Croatian government pulled the wool over Western eyes (as if the news that a foreign government employed a PR firm is stunning).

The main allegation is that American Jewish groups were passive dupes. To make the case would require the use of evidence, which is not provided. A boastful PR agent says he managed the campaign to call the events in Bosnia genocide. Well, he would, wouldn't he? It's a self-serving account with no facts presented to back it up.

quote:

---

Of course Izetbegovic has "Muslim" written into his ideology. It was really only religion which made the 'Bosnians' different from their neighbours - i.e. "ethnic" Serbs and Croatians. The thing is, Cueball, is that the "Bosnians" who were most loyal to the federal system were what are now identified as "Muslims". This renaming (or at least a change in emphasis) became politically salient as a result of the rise in Serb nationalism.

---

I have a real problem making a firm distinction as to who started the 'nationalism' thing, who started the war etc. I am suprised that anyone feels confident that they can. I have a friend who asserts that the war in Bosnia began when a Serb who owed money to an ethnic Bosnia Mulsim was gunned down at a wedding by ethnic Muslims. Do you see my point? The support for one side over another seems quite aribtrary, and almost prejudical itself.

Notwhitstanding abuse favouring Serbs in the old Yugolslvia I find myself only able to sum up extreme neutrality, and I am certainly not going to support actions by NATO/UN/USA, which so obviously dovetail with the long term strategic goals of the western European powers, especially when they overtly play a role supporting one side against the other, and I am not going support their show trials against the losers. Even, (Swallow) if the starchamber does have an internal democratic vote to determine who will wield the executioners axe.

The Zisek quote is interesting.

[ 30 August 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Sorry, my friend (I hope that isn't presumptious) - I went back and edited some things that may anticipate your response. Sorry for the confusion.

I think we can observe 'neutrality' in the sense of "not having a dog in that fight", though I don't recommend that. I think we ought to have a dog in the fight and figure out what an appropriate leftist and humanist response is to what took place. I don't know that 'neutrality' should keep us from trying to investigate causes and effects, where those can be discerned.

I also think that suggesting that Serb nationalism (as articulated by Milosevic and his ideologues) was a lynchpin around which so much else turned necessarily means that we have to apportion all the blame to Serbs. I'm no more a fan of the Croatian nationalism that emerged in response, though I can understand the social and political mechanisms that made it salient.

[ 30 August 2004: Message edited by: Courage ]

These are show trials in the exact sense of the word, they are designed to show the rightness of the NATO/UN/US attacks against Yugoslavia by vilifying the primary target -- Serbians and Yugoslav nationals. The outcome is preordained, as would most likely be the case were someone to spend seven years preparing a case against Izetbogovic -- No ones hands are clean. Fear not, that will not happen.

[ 30 August 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Swallow, any system of justice that obviously singles out one ethnic group as a primary target of 'justice,' is overtly biased.

---

It has not been demonstrated that the ICTY disprortionately targets Serbs. There are, after all, indicted people from all sides. You can say the indicted non-Serbs are there as window dressing, but that doesn't prove it. As has been said, it takes time to put a case together. And even if the tribunal does mostly indict Serbian defendants, this does not invalidate it. If 90% of the masacring was carried out by Serbs, then it would only be fair for 90% of those indicted to be Serbs. (On that point, even the Bosnian Serb authorities now admit their security forfces carried out a deliberate massacre at Srebenica, which is central to the argument that genocide took place.)

quote:

---

These are show trials in the exact sense of the word, they are designed to show the rightness of the NATO/UN/US attacks against Yugoslavia by vilifying the primary target -- Serbians and Yugoslav nationals.

---

These trials are designed to make an advance in the cause of international law. It wasn't NATO or Washington that fiorst conceived of and planned the ICTY, it was human rights activists. The trials are designed, not by the disembodied forces of darkness, but by individual people genuinely committed to preventing future genocides. The fact that the ICTY is used by NATO for its own ends does not mean NATO designed the court. The court has not done anything to promote NATO bombings. (Nor have the more directly concerned mixed tribunals in Kosovo.)

quote:

---

The outcome is preordained, as would most likely be the case were someone to spend seven years preparing a case against Izetbogovic -- No ones hands are clean. Fear not, that will not happen.

---

Even in the Stalin show trials, there were many instances were the greater charges were dismissed in favour of lesser charges -- active conspiracy downgraded to criminal incompetence, etc. In fact 'apparent' deliberation over sentencing and judgement are key to making the charade palatable for the public, as are throwing in token 'others.'

As for hypothetical assertion that Serbs are responsible for 90% of the war crimes committed, you have fallen into more or less the same logic that is used by those who justify racial profiling -- look how many we have investigated, arrested, tried and convicted: there must be a correlation between colour and criminality.

There is little I have seen (outside of Srebrenica) that shows the Serbs were that much worse than those they fought, and the case of Krajina is comparable, depending on which narrative you chose.

On the other hand the gigantic difference between the numbers of those 'slaughtered' by Milosovic, (as asserted by Albright and co.,) in Kosovo and the actual number of bodies discovered, underscores the clear bias of those who have sponsored the investigation, persuit and proesecution Milosevic.

They wanted to get him and attacked a sovereign country on the basis that a Hitleresque genocide was being pereptrated on his behalf. It turns out that his crimes can be proved to be little more than the repressive measures practiced world-wide by any number of authoritarian regiemes, which are actively supported by the sponsors of the court (Uzbekistan, comes to mind.) convened specifically to indict him and no one else but him and his associates.

I'll ask you this: if, as you say, you were opposed to the bombing (ergo the means used to effect arrest) but support the arrest, aren't you more or less justifying illegal police procedure, in which police can use any means to effect the arrest of supects?

In international law it is the equivalent of watching the police beat a suspect in the street and then saying "they shouldn't be doing that," while you roll the blinds down over your window and then later say you support the trial, despite knowing the condition under which arrest made and evidence gathered.

How can you in anyway support a court which is the final stage of a legal process that begins with such an obviously corrupt procedure as attacking a sovereign country, an attack you claim to oppose. Legal processess that begin in corruption are corrupt. Period.

And frankly, it is simply untrue to say that the tribunal has done nothing to support the attack on Yugoslavia, when in fact the courts special prosecuitor stated that Milosevic was a war criminal and that she intended to prosecute him as such, came at a precipitous moment just before the bombing was to begin, thus adding much credibility to the case for the bombing.

[ 30 August 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

As the appointment of the two new justices is showing, our Canadian Supreme Court is a democratic creation of democratically (more or less) elected legislature and executive. The ICTY has none of this essential democratic basis. The Security Council is not a democratic World Executive.

---

As with most of the nitpicking about the ICTY, the implication of this is that there is no international body of any kind, anywhere in the world, which has the right to try Milosevic.

So, I guess we should just let him go home and forget about it.
------------------
To me, people actually interested in the larger issue, that of the ability of international law to bring war criminals to justice, should be fighting to broaden and deepen such law.

For the most part, they don't. Instead, they claim that since some people are immune, because of their power, then everyone must be immune.

quote:

---

.... Instead, they claim that since some people are immune, because of their power, then everyone must be immune.

---

Precisely. I mean we have to hang someone for the crime dont we?

Interesting of course that objections to the principal that justice should be handed out equally to all without regard to their station, culture, or politcal affiliation, would be made by Canadians, people who are immune, as they presume to preside over the law that is metted out to others but not themselves. How nice for Louise Arbour this is.

Most Serbians I know have also noted this legal sleight of hand at work (lets call it: lady justice with one arm). This does not bode well for the stability of the region.

[ 31 August 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

More internaional law? So the lawyers can get more prestigious jobs at the Hague

---

quote:

---

No doubt you will be indicted for this some day.

---

A fundamental principal of justice is not that some justice is applied to some people, it is that justice is dispensed to all people, equally:

jus·tice ( P ) Pronunciation Key (jsts)
n.
1. The quality of being just; fairness.

2.

a. The principle of moral rightness; equity.
From Dictionary.com

If equality is not a an aspect of you dispense it is not justice at all, but simply a formal excercise, and a toy for lawyers. Sorry, it that offends some people.

I noticed that all of the ICTY supporters have neatly sidestepped the issue of Milosevic being banned from defending himself. Lovely.

[ 03 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

For instance this is a special tribunal not a standing court that could hear any number of complaints, this in itself undersores the inherent bias in the process. Look at it this way: Did Canada formulate a 'Special Tribunal' to try Clifford Olsen?

No. Because there are standing courts and a system, which any person can theoretically appeal to justice.

If Canada only convened 'special tribunals,' once in a while, to try certain people for mass murder, but not others, when the state thought it necessary, would you have a problem with that?

Rather than allowing the US to try its special pet projects where and whenever it wants, continued preassure should be applied to get the US to the US to sign on to the ICC. Allowing them to decide whom is tried and when is just encouraging them to continue with the status quo.

[ 03 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

One more time the tribunal shows that it is a political not a legal process.

[ 03 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Saying that the Serbs are the "majority" of those being prosecuted when it's fairly well established, except by goofy extremist groups that Rikardo keeps pointing to, that the Serbian forces were in fact the aggressors in most cases and responsible for the vast majority of war crimes. Fact that war criminals from other ethnic groups are also being prosecuted, even if later in the day, undermines this argument to the point of irrelevancy. Fact that some are still walking free is probably just another political reality, based on the limits not strength of these tribunals.

Whether the NATO led war was right, in either sense of the word, is another issue which can be fairly debated either way, one on which I'm rather ambivilent about still. I would only suggest that the "left" take a nuanced position on this issue, one which recognises that neither side of this conflict has a monopoly on what's right, or more accurately, what was wrong.

[ 03 September 2004: Message edited by: Erik the Red ]

Milosevic did not refuse a proper defence, he insisted that he be allowed to represent himself. Whether or not Milosevic is a good lawyer is beside the point. If he is sane enough to be tried he is sane enough to conduct his own defence. Simple. It is his right.

[ 03 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

"It has not been demonstrated that the ICTY disproportionately targets

Serbs."

The only political leadership on trial in the ICTY is that of the Serbs. Neither Tudjman of Croatia or Izebogovic of Muslim Bosnia or any of the Kosovar Albanian leaders have been accused. Thus they are innocent. Unlike the "judgement" of "history", in Western criminal law with its Roman Christian origins, one is "guilty" or "innocent". That the ICTY did not even accuse anyone but the Serb political leadership as did Nuremberg with the Nazis, is revealing. Didn't Tudjman authorise the massacres of many of the Serb minority of Gospic in 1991 ? Did he try to stop them ? What about Croatian Defence Minister Susac who once worked at the KFC on Bank St. in Ottawa. Would we accept here in Canada, a court that tried and condemned only one of four equally guilty criminals and didn't even accuse the other three ?

Where was the investigation? Where was the statement from the prosecutor, who so brazenly announced that Milosevic was 'a war criminal' (before the her investigation was complete) stating that she was pursuing Croatian and Muslim Bosnian leaders in reagards to crimes committed against Serbs?

She never made any such announcement.

Even after the often gross factual mistakes are corrected about the origins, functioning, composition and responsibilities of the ICTY, the same arguments are repeated, which is a good indication of a disinformation campaign in the worst cases. Or at least of a certain degree of bad faith in other cases.

When examined closely, the attacks on the ICTY reveal themselves to be unfounded, misleading, inflammatory and politically motivated.

As pointed out repeatedly, criminal acts from all ethnic groups have been targeted by the tribunal. Indictments have been handed out against both low-level and high ranking individuals from all sides, Croat, Serb, Bosnian Muslim and some Kosovars. And people from those groups have been found guilty, or acquitted as the case may be when evidence was insufficient or pointed to innocence.

Likewise, as pointed out repeatedly - and anyone can analyse the trail of documentation from the early 1990s onwards, it's all in the public record - the tribunal was not set up by the US or NATO. Interestingly, US has been trying to shut down the ICTY for the past 3 years or so. Some imperialist tool. The ICTY was created by the UN and judges are chosen by the full General Assembly.

The attacks against the ICTY have other roots, depending on the source: either support for Serbian ultranationalism, or support for a warped form of Marxism-Leninism, or hostility to international criminal law, or hostility to "bourgeois" ideologies such as the ideology of Amnesty International (I have had a few very weird conversations with people who have tried to make the ridiculous case that Amnesty International, one of the main groups that pushed for the ICTY, before US or NATO or EU or the UN or the Islamic world or the Russians or anyone else gave a shit, was a tool of some bourgeois imperialist colonialist plot). None of the criticisms of the ICTY are founded in fact, or on any solid legal principle taken seriously by the vast majority of the international legal community or international human rights community.

The attacks on the ICTY, as one can notice, are usually voiced as attacks on the Milosevic trial. Of course, because a serious analysis of the breadth of topics and issues covered by the ICTY would show that the ICTY has tried people from all sides, strengthened the rights of victims of war, in particular women, and established the precedents on which much of the work for the International Criminal Tribunal was based.

The creating of the ICTY is probably one of the most glorious moments in the history of the international human rights movement. It is a pure NGO idea from below. It is their victory, their creation, their contribution to taming international conflict.

The argument over the legitimacy of the ICTY is unncessary and unfortnate. The world should be pouring money into it.

[ 14 September 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

The author of the post throws around general accussations about 'some people,' formulates those argument in the abstract, and then having done so undermines the arguement no one made. Given that these arguments were not made by persons on this board I am curious as to why they are being raised. If the poster is attempting to directly discuss aspects of commentary made by other posters, one wonders why those commentaries are not directly quoted.

Instead the poster formulates and arguement without references to previous commentary and then makes a series of assertions, such as:

quote:

---

As pointed out repeatedly, criminal acts from all ethnic groups have been targeted by the tribunal. Indictments have been handed out against both low-level and high ranking individuals from all sides, Croat, Serb, Bosnian Muslim and some Kosovars. And people from those groups have been found guilty, or acquitted as the case may be when evidence was insufficient or pointed to innocence.

---

This assertion of course is made without the support of documents or links referencing third sources, not even the persons theoretically being confronted.

I ask in regard to Ricardo's assertion that only Serb leadership has been indicted, which of the Albanian, Croatian, or Muslim Bosnian leadership have also been indicted. The fact that lower renaking persons from a variety of ethnic groups may have been indicted, does not in any way undermine Riakardo's point about leadership.

This is the essential problem of the straw man arguement made by CM, in that Rikardo's basic assertion about leadership has been ignored, and replaced with an arguement actually not made.

It would seem that the CM is only interested in scoring debating points against fictional contestants, rather than debating the real ones.

CM provides a list of these fictional persons including "Serbian ultranationalists," "warped Marxist-Leninists," those "hostile to international criminal law," and enemies of Amnesty international and declares that nothing they say is based in fact, (without even referencing which facts are in question, of course) on the basis that anyone who does oppose the formulation of the ICTY are to not "taken seriously by the vast majority of the international legal community or international human rights community."

So Ramsey Clarke, former US attorney general, is not a member of the international legal community? Really? How is that established. Oh, I see: because CM says so.

On that note, I would like to ask CM whether Eddie Greenspan is a "Serb Ultranationalist," a "warped Marxist Leninist," a person hostile to international law, or is he simply one of those run-of-the mill enemies of Amnesty International?

In the end all of CM's opponents are not dealt with by direct confrontation but simple name calling, straw men arguements and derision.

Derision is not argument, CM. You can do better.

[ 15 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

All of the facts and documents and reports have been referenced many times in this thread by many people posting. All those documents are available in libraries or on the websites of bodies such as the UN Security Council.

There is no point to continuing a discussion with people so biased in their opposition to international law.

[ 15 September 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

My position is that allowing key powers to define who will be tried under the auspices of ad-hoc tribunals, only encourages countries like the United State of America, in their attempts to avoid signing onto the ICC. This is because the UN can be used as a tool to attack their official enemies and justify their military campaigns under the guise of 'international law' but at the same time avoid possible prosecutions.

The systems as applied by the ICTY is far to open to political rigging for my taste.

Which part of supporting previously applied and universally applicable International law and support for the ICC, do you define as being part of my opposition to international law?

Me, from a post not far above this:

quote:

---

Rather than allowing the US to try its special pet projects where and whenever it wants, continued preassure should be applied to get the US to the US to sign on to the ICC. Allowing them to decide whom is tried and when is just encouraging them to continue with the status quo.

---

Intellectually honest people read what people say before attacking them.

[ 15 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

As pointed out repeatedly, criminal acts from all ethnic groups have been targeted by the tribunal. Indictments have been handed out against both low-level and high ranking individuals from all sides, Croat, Serb, Bosnian Muslim and some Kosovars. And people from those groups have been found guilty, or acquitted as the case may be when evidence was insufficient or pointed to innocence.

---

Note that I never asserted that no non-Serbs were ever indicted, as indicated by CM in the above statement. I noted that 90% of prosecution target Serbs. Given that CM has choses to dispute the factual basis of my arguement, I took CM's advice and went to the ICTY site, and counted the indictees.

Serbs 97
Croats 22
Albanian Kosovars 3
Bosnian Muslims 7

(Go count them if you wish, I may have misplaced one or two but the numbers are roughly correct.)

So, it seems I exagerated, roughly 80% of all prosecutions are against Serbs not 90.

The absurdity of the principal of the Ad-hoc Tribunal is highlighted by some rather odd indictments made against JVN commanders around the seige of Dubrovnik, and the artillery shelling of the town. Here they are charged with:

quote:

---

UNJUSTIFIED DEVASTATION , UNLAWFUL ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN OBJECTS, DESTRUCTION OR WILFUL DAMAGE TO INSTITUTIONS DEDICATED TO RELIGION, CHARITY, AND EDUCATION, THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, HISTORIC MONUMENTS AND WORKS OF ART AND SCIENCE

---

Indictment here

How absurd that the defenders of ICTY can stand in pious defence of the principals of "international law," when this charge is laid under the auspices of those same people who destroyed the ancient city of Belgrade? The same military aparatus that stood calously by while the Musuem of Baghdad was sacked, and bombed historic buidlings, monuments and bridges into dust. When will charges be brought against Rumsfeld for helping to destroy one of the three most important archives of the Arab people?

Not by the ICTY, not ever. When did hypocrisy become enshrined as a fundamental principal of law?

[ 15 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

But you do continue to repeat statements that are misleading, I feel almost deliberately misleading.

More indictments have been handed down against Serb suspects because most of the atrocities were committed by Serb paramilitaries and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army.

This has been established in many reports, including reports by the special rapporteurs to the UN Secretary General, reports that served as a basis for the Security council resolutions creating the ICTY.

You also, for some reason I can't understand, continue to make the false statement about charges being laid under the auspices of powers like the US.

Charges are laid by the prosecutor of the ICTY, not the US or NATO or any country. Again, the US has been pressuring for the UN to shut down the ICTY, some auspices...

You can continue to consider ad hoc international criminal tribunals absurd. But they are the precedent for the ICC you claim to support. But without the absurd ICTY, there could not be an ICC. I read your argument as therefore being opposed to the ICC and internationl prosecution of human rights violations and war crimes as well since you argue that you consider its foundation, the ICTY, to be absurd. You can't have one without the other. No ICTY, no ICC. Your attack on the ICTY is an attack on the ICC, founded explicitly on the work and principles of the ICTY and the Rwanda Tribunal (another tribunal being denigrated as we speak by people such as Ramsay Clark who denies the international community has a right to prosecute Rwandans for genocide)

The ICTY was set up legally and legitimately under the powers the UN Charter accords to the Security Council. You can read the entire list of resolutions and reports on any UN site.

As well, the Security Council resolutions not only call upon all states to cooperate with the ICTY, they ORDER them to do so under the appropriate chapter of the UN Charter. Cooperation and the immediate transfer of any indictees to The Hague is considered "application of an enforcement measure under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations". This order has been reaffirmed in numerous Security Council resolutions.

The general Assembly in Dec 22, 1995 also voted to remind all states to cooperate with the Tribunal, including through compliance with requests for assistance and orders issued by a trial chamber of the Tribunal.

The attacks on the legitimacy international criminal tribunals such as the ICTY are unfounded in law or fact. You will not find a single international law association that considers the ICTY absurd or illegitimate.

The attacks on the ICTY are part of an internationally orchestrated campaign to save Milosevic's butt and to save the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.

Victims deserve justice.

[ 16 September 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

Opponents have not been arguing for "even-handed" treatment - they have been arguing that it is illegal, or immoral, or illegitimate for the UN Security Council to set up war crimes tribunals such as the ICTY and the Rwanda Tribunal.

The International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic is perhaps the most well-known and representative group in this international anti-UN movement.

You were quite accurate in writing that there's a "perception" of unfairness by the UN. A perception created and spread by the falsifications of such movements to support Milosevic. This focus on deliberately distorted "perception" is a tactic used by groups like the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic to deny the right of the international community to try any human rights violations or war crimes committed by Serbian officials and soldiers.

An examination of the facts, as many people in this thread and on previous Yugoslav-related threads have repeatedly documented, shows that the ICTY is one of the major accomplishments of the international human rights movement of the 20th century.

Again, denying the legitimacy of the ICTY is to deny the legitimacy of the International Criminal Tribunal, which is to deny the legitimacy of efforts by citizen movements worldwide to bring perpetrators of human rights abuses to justice.

These same citizens movements do not hesitate to call for investigations into allegations of abuses or crimes by any other international or local players or powers nor do they hesitate to call for prosecutions when there is evidence of abuses or crimes, whether they are committed by an American or an Israeli or a Palestinian or a Russian or a Croat or an Indonesian or a Saudi.

The campaign for Milosevic is ugly revisionism. It is an attempt to rewrite the history of the international human rights struggle and to discredit movements like Amnesty International as well as UN human rights agencies as well as an attempt to rewrite and sanitize the history of the Balkans.

Every revolution seems to spark a counter-revolution. The international human rights revolution, one of whose major achievements is the creation of international criminal tribunals, obviously has sparked its own counterrevolution.

It is based on the spreading of disinformation.

[ 16 September 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

quote:

---

I believe what people are trying to say, Critical Mass, is that if we are to go after perpetrators of atrocities, we should go after all, without fear or favor.

The perception is that the Serbian perpetrators are disproportionately being targetted and that Croatian and Bosnian perps are not being pursued with equal vigor.

---

Thank you. And you are close.

The real problem is not that the ICTY does not go after Croats and Bosnian Muslims (largely left alone to investigate their own, unlike the Serbs,) although there is evident bais. But that the pond in which the ICTY is allowed to fish in is exclusive to those groups, persons from the any of the countries involved in the campaign against Serbia, are for practical purposes immune. The reality is that most of those countries who are the central power block of the NATO alliance, also conveniently sit on the security council of the UN.

The division that CM is championing between the UN (as the ICTY) and NATO is largley false, like saying that if the board of directors of one company is largely made up of the same people who sit on the board of another company that there is not going to be likeminded collusion between the two. It is unlikely that company A will set up a product line that competes with the product line of company B, given that they share board members.

What CM does not understand is that I am not challenging the bias of the court itself, so much as challenging the bias of the aparartus within which the court is set.

Unfortuantely it seems as if CM is completely out to sea on the idea that the US is the most powerful country in NATO, and also the most powerful country in the UN. Because of this the US has been able to;

• Use NATO as its active agent in the Balkans,
• limit the mandate of criminal prosecutions using the tool of ad-hoc tribunals targeting specific felons, through its position on the UNSC, and use those tribunals as a cover for its activity in the Balkans;
• actively block the extension of international law by refusing to sign onto the ICC;
• force (by threat of cuts in aid etc.) smaller allies to sign Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIA's), thus giving US personel immunity even in coutries that have signed onto the ICC
• (added) decide to put preassure on the ICTY, to speed trials, begin no more investigation and close up shop ASAP conveniently after all of its intial indictees (mostly Serbs) have been tried.

CM's insitance at the lack of bias in the process is absurd as can be seen looking at the makeup of the ICTY. US influence is overt. Who is the president of the Chambers, Theodor Meron, Where is he from; the USA. Who is the deputy prosecutor; David Tolbert. Where is he from; the USA. It's even sicker than that when you consider that the court just appointed (against the defedants wishes) two lawyers from the US's historical ally Great Britain*. Can you say Kangaroo court?

The US was a full participant in the Balkan wars, even if you accept the reigning wisdom, which is that the US acted a police officer, not agressor, the makeup of the court is such that a police officer is in the prosecutors office, and the police chief sits in presidents chair.

*under the same government that incidentally decided that Pinochet was not fit to stand trial, on medical grounds. Absurdly Milosovic is allowed to stand trial but not allowed to act in his own defence, on health grounds. Where is Jack Straw now, shouldn't he be arguing that Milosovic should be sent back to Serbia? ROFL!!!!!

[ 16 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

The attacks on the ICTY are part of an internationally orchestrated campaign to save Milosevic's butt and to save the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.

---

Suggesting that laws should be universally applicable to all, and not selectively orchestrated through ad-hoc legal processes puts me in an international conspiracy of Serb nationalists and Rwandan mass murderers?

Are you channeling Dzerzhinsky?

quote:

---

Not if the various UN and human rights reports come up with results showing 80-90% of the alleged crimes have been committed by the Serb paramilitaries and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav armed forces.

---

We might want to ask, if all of this criminal activity and mass slaughter on the grand scale you are proposing, as independently verified by all these sources (that you refer to but don't link to) why is it now the case that ICTY prosectution does not believe that they can pin a genocide charge on Mr. Milosvic?

[ 17 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

I am defending the principal that law should not target one particuallar group of people but not others. If police officers only charge black people, and bring those black people to trial does it mean that the legal system is racist or not?

Does that negate the fact that those Black people may be guilty? No.

[ 18 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
I am not defending Milosovic. I am defending equality in law. Do you get it?

---

"Those who are not with us, are with the terrorist?"

--GWB

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:
We might want to ask, if all of this criminal activity and mass slaughter on the grand scale you are proposing, as independently verified by all these sources (that you refer to but don't link to) why is it now the case that ICTY prosectution does not believe that they can pin a genocide charge on Mr. Milosvic?

---

quote:

---

The law is unfair to Milosevic only if Milosevic was the same as, say Izetbegovic. I think he was much worse.

---

And I think I can not tell you wether or not Milosevic was worse or not. I was not there. Where you? This is why a trial process must be manifestly fair, so that we may trust the opinion of the court.

Having ALL of the key offices of the court directly linked to two of the nations that pursued a course of war against a country whose president is being tried does not appear at all fair.

The President of the court: USA
The Deputy Prosecutor: USA
The (APPOINTED) Defence lawyers: Great Britain.

Are there not other legal experts in the world whom could have fulfilled these functions? Why is it that the court, on all sides (Prosecution and the defence) is stacked with nationals from countries that were billigerents against the target of the prosecution.

One would have to be heavily professionally invested in the process itself not to be exteremly dubious of the purposes of the court, and its fairness, and its freedom from political influence.

How can we ever trust its conclusions?

[ 19 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

---

Judging by your previous posts You seem to be the one who has difficulty dealing with complex realities. Do you believe Milosevic is guilty or not?

---

The prosecution does not believe they can pin a genocide charge. What could be more clear.

I doubt that he actively pursued a course of genocide. I think that he may be responsible at some level for some crimes. If every general or president were held responsible for their armies crimes in combat all generals and presidents would be in jail.

There is a big difference for culability for war crimes and explicitly pursuing a course of genocide.

For instance, the late Daniel Pearl assessed the situation thus, when writing in the Wall Street Journal in 1999:

Despite Tales, the War in Kosovo Was Savage, but Wasn't Genocide

quote:

---

But other allegations -- indiscriminate mass murder, rape camps, crematoriums, mutilation of the dead -- haven't been borne out in the six months since NATO troops entered Kosovo. Ethnic-Albanian militants, humanitarian organizations, NATO and the news media fed off each other to give genocide rumors credibility. Now, a different picture is emerging.

Selective Terror

"Rwanda was a true genocide. Kosovo was ethnic cleansing light," says Emilio Perez Pujol, a Spanish pathologist who exhumed bodies after both conflicts. In his sector of western Kosovo, he says, the United Nations told him to expect as many as 2,000 victims. His team found 187 corpses, none of which showed evidence to confirm local accounts of mutilations.

[Snip]
British and American officials still maintain that 10,000 or more ethnic-Albanian civilians died at Serb hands during the fighting in Kosovo. The U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has accused Serbs of covering up war crimes by moving bodies. It has begun its own military analysis of the Serb offensive.

But the number of bodies discovered so far is much lower -- 2,108 as of November, and not all of them necessarily war-crimes victims. While more than 300 reported grave sites remain to be investigated, the tribunal has checked the largest reported sites first, and found most to contain no more than five bodies, suggesting intimate acts of barbarity rather than mass murder.

---

Either way, I find the evidence given for some sort of US-NATO conspiracy, US judges and Milosevic being appointed attornies, considerably less compelling than the facts which noone even disputes. The US has generally opposed any international war crimes tribunal, the EU dithered for years while treaty after treaty was broken by Serbian paramilitaries, the Serbians were in fact the aggressors in most cases, while Milosevic and his cronies played upon and benefitted from these conflicts politically, supporting their paramiltaries throughout. I don't believe for a minute he didn't know.

[ 19 September 2004: Message edited by: Erik the Red ]

I presume that you think that Daniel Pearl is some sort of schill for the Serbian mob. In fact the people who killed Pearl thought he worked for the CIA. He was brave journalist who worked across the lines searching for the truth. He was neither taken in by ramped up propganda or by Milosovic appologists.

He was there, you were not.

If you would like to view the Pearl killing you can find it at Ogrish.Com -- it might please you since he was, like myself, obviously in league with mass murderers. He was killed by Islamic militants in Pakistan. Your simple dismissal of points of view contrary to your own, without any regard to first hand reporting of experienced pathologists, and journalist working in the field, is very telling.

Amazing, any source that does not conform to your pre-est beliefs is immediatly determined by you to be goofy radical extermeism. What is goofy and extermist about the Wall Street Journal?

Daniel Pearl was there and he does contest your facts, so was the Spanish pathologist. Yet you presume superior knowledge of what actually happend in Kosovo?

Even more amazing since not two days ago you revealed that you were so ill informed that you believed that the trial was over, and that Milosevic had not been given the death penalty. You didn't even know that the Hague does not give out the death penalty.

quote:

---

Miloscevic is the one who refused a proper defence, prefering to simply attack the courts legitimacy (as his apologists do) and I heard he's just received a long prison sentence rather than the death penalty. Fair enough for what he was largely responsible for.

---

Now I don't disrespect you for not knowing things. These are complex issues, and alternative views do not get a lot of play in the press, but you might at least deign to provide contrary sources to the information that I provided, rather than simply dismissing everyone who disargrees with you as a kook.

Calling people kooks might be emotionally satisfying, but it is no replacement for sourcing evidence or logical arguement.

[ 20 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

I just said that the circumstances leading up to this trial makes it hard for me to accept that this is nothing more than a "kangaroo" court, and despite my limited knowledge of what has happened over there I find the constant use of a few minor objections to delegitimize the whole process rather questionable. Particularly given some of the sources cited earlier, which I'd be glad to repost if you just think I'm being difficult.

I'm not just talking about what happened in Kosovo either, as worse atrocities were committed in Bosnia and elsewhere, particularly in Bosnia. You are of course entitled to your own opinion, just don't expect everyone on the left to accept it.

Edited to Add: If my "facts" that "noone disputes" are in fact disputed then feel free to show me where and how; I'm perfectly willing to admit mistakes if someone can show me where.

[ 20 September 2004: Message edited by: Erik the Red ]

quote:

---

I just said that the circumstances leading up to this trial makes it hard for me to accept that this is nothing more than a "kangaroo" court, and despite my limited knowledge of what has happened over there I find the constant use of a few minor objections to delegitimize the whole process rather questionable.

---

The difference between 100,000 people being systematically slaughtered in Nazi-like death camps (the claim made by the US state department) and the discovery 2000 odd bodies, that may or may not have been combat fatalities is a "minor" discrepancy? My objection to the use of this highly inflated statistic as a justification for war against a sovereign country is a minor objection?

Honestly, I find the whole objection to the thesis that the US was using its influence in bad faith, as part of an overall startegic campaign to break up Yugosalivia very odd.

• Breaking up the communist block was a stated US goal for 50 years, why is it so odd that they would act to consumate its long term startegic goal, after the collapse of soviet power?
  
• Think too that the US globally supported a network of Muslim undeground movements througout Asia and southern Europe as part fo that strategy to effect that collapse.

Why is it that you are so ready to accept that their intervention was anything other than an extension of 50 years of foreign policy, and its support for the ICTY and the subsequent charges against the Serbian leadership simply a means to justify the coupe de gras?

But forget that, what are your facts?

[ 21 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

That last may have been exaggerated and manipulated to some degree by Kosovar rebels (Also recognized later by mainstream sources) but so-called Serbian police were starting an accelerating campaign to drive the majority Albanians from their homes and some were being killed in the process.

I will see what documentation and links I can find online between the Milosevic regime and earlier atrocities, which may have spurred Western intervention for more humanitarian reasons. To simply presume everything is part of some nefarious US scheme, and allow other competing forces to hide behind this, isn't a sound geopolitical perspective IMO.

[ 23 September 2004: Message edited by: Erik the Red ]

quote:

---

That last may have been exaggerated and manipulated to some degree by Kosovar rebels (Also recognized later by mainstream sources) but so-called Serbian police were starting an accelerating campaign to drive the majority Albanians from their homes and some were being killed in the process.

---

Source the accusation that the Serb police started driving people out, at anytime. Yes there was a refugee crisis but that didn't begin until after NATO began bombing Kosovo. Right?

What do people do when they country they are living in is being bombed?

Isn't it possible that people began to leave because of the bombing and because of the fear of reprisals from Serbians angry at the KLA for manipulating NATO into siding with them?

Isn't it possible that that the bombing actually caused the refugee crisis?

Michael Mandel, letter to Louise Arbour:

quote:

---

As you are no doubt aware, NATO leaders have been using this evidence to justify their bombing campaign of Yugoslavia. We find the chronological logic of this claim impossible to accept, since the atrocities now being reported and cited in justification of the attack all happened after the bombing started on March 24. Furthermore, nobody seems to doubt that they were provoked by the bombing itself, even if, putting NATO's case at its strongest, the attack only provided an excuse for the massacre of ethnic Albanians left defenceless by the withdrawal of the international monitors. But there were doubtless a combination of factors involved in crimes against civilians in Kosovo -- the extent and nature of which, of course, remain to be established -- including predictably brutal anti-guerilla war tactics aimed at rooting out KLA fighters, as well as revenge for the massive bombing of Serbian civilians by the KLA's NATO allies. And we know that civilians died from NATO's own bombs (along the Prizren-Djavkovica road on April 15 and in Korisa on May 15 for two admitted examples).

---

Dear Madam Justice Arbour:

An other renegade lawyer and apologist for Serbian Ultranationalists, like Noam Chomsky and Eddie Greenspan?

[ 23 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 23 September 2004: Message edited by: Erik the Red ]

quote:

---

see if I can dig up some decent sources which credibly link them to the Milosevic regime.

---

Given that he says:

quote:

---

Naturally this doesn't excuse the Serb leadership from their responsibility for the crimes in Kosovo. But neither can it permit NATO leaders to wash their own hands of responsibility for NATO's undeniable and unforgiveable contribution to the tragedy, especially since NATO's adventure in Kosovo was not just wrongful and harmful; it was, as we and many others have submitted to you, clearly illegal and, indeed, criminal.

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One would think that his position is a little more nuanaced than you make out. Unfortuante that you can not make your way beyond using your 'friendship' with Michael Mandel as means to legitimize your position. As usual you add nothing of substance, except the banal insistence that anyone who opposes the Hague tribunal (as being anything less than the perfect extension of modern law) is an appologist for mass murder and genocide.

How can you you say that you have 'friends' who are appologist for Milosevic, given that he is a hitleresque genocider. In my books that would definitely end a friendship however long.

An absurd and disingenuous farce. If anything undescores the bankruptcy of your legal philosphical outlook it is this comment. Condemn the villians one day then have tea with their apolgists the next.

I'd rather discuss this with someone who is serious about the issue, even if they are sans llb.

quote:

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To CB: The source was my own eyes, watching Serbian "cops" driving Albanians out of their homes, very much like they did in Bosnia, Before the NATO military intervention Began.

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I should have clarified my question. I thought of editing the question but let it stand.

I should have said "source the accusation that the Serb police started driving people out, at anytime, as part of a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing. For instance there is no doubt in my mind that enterprising reporters could have found some Serb police booting some people out of their homes at some time.

An enterprising reporter could capture such activity on TV in any city in Canada on the first of any given month.

Be careful what you watch on tv.

quote:

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Garth Pritchard, a Canadian filmmaker, accompanied the forensic team to Kosovo. "This was a massacre that never happened." He joined mission leader Brian Strongman in lambasting Canadian Louise Arbour, the special prosecutor for the tribunal that brought the charges against Mr. Milosevic. Ms. Arbour, now the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was used as a pawn by war-hungry Washington and London, they said. "I was standing there when the forensic teams were telling Louise Arbour there were no 200,000 bodies and she didn't want to know," Mr. Pritchard told the Citizen.

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Another Case of Mass Deception?

[ 24 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

He seems to believe he knows better than the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, Amnesty International, the International Bar Association, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Red Cross, International Crisis Group, the Canadian Association of International Law, etc.

His attempts to denigrate the bringing to justice of people indicted for war crimes in the Balkans is absurd. That is what he has been doing all along.

This misguided and deliberately misleading campaign to rewrite history in a pro-Milosevic direction is pathetic.

He might want to take a Human Rights 101 refresher course.

If I may make a suggestion, we should henceforth refuse to respond to his ridiculous, factually unfounded assertions.

I think those of us who support international human rights have proven our case very sucessfully in the above thread based on documentation and the true accurate historical record of how the ICTY came about and how it is structured.

Notice how the anti-human rights agenda people like Cueball argue about exaggerations over Kosovo. They conveniently forget the charges against Milosevic in Croatia and Bosnia.

And the denigrators of the human rights movement like to point to misinformation about the extent of Kosovo abuses by either NATO P.R. personnel or Western government spokesmen during the Kosovo War. None of these people is a member of the ICTY or an ICTY prosecutor. None of their allegations made in the heat of the wartime pro- and anti-propaganda is part of the indictment or of the legal proceedings. There is no connection.

To attack propaganda exaggerations by non-court personnel as if that discredited the ICTY is pure dishonesty on the part of the pro-Milosevic camp. The court never indicted the man for what the anti-ICTY camp claims it did.

The ICTY indictment against Milosevic does not accuse Milosevic of things like genocide in Kosovo or other items that were exaggerated at the time. The genocide charges are about his decisions in Bosnia. The charges about Kosovo have to do with abuses committed during the ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Kosovar Albanians by the Milosevic-controlled army and police in a province that was part of Serbia and that was under the control of the Milosevic government.

As we say in French, Cueball "ment comme il respire".

[ 24 September 2004: Message edited by: Critical Mass ]

Cueball is actually Bagdad Bob, former Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf: http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

As one commentator wrote:

"In an age of spin, al-Sahaf offers feeling and authenticity. His message is consistent -- unshakeable, in fact, no matter the evidence -- but he commands daily attention by his on-the-spot, invective-rich variations on the theme. His lunatic counterfactual art is more appealing than the banal awfulness of the Reliable Sources. He is a Method actor in a production that will close in a couple of days. He stands superior to truth."

Cueball is actually Bagdad Bob, former Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf: http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

As one commentator wrote:

"In an age of spin, al-Sahaf offers feeling and authenticity. His message is consistent -- unshakeable, in fact, no matter the evidence -- but he commands daily attention by his on-the-spot, invective-rich variations on the theme. His lunatic counterfactual art is more appealing than the banal awfulness of the Reliable Sources. He is a Method actor in a production that will close in a couple of days. He stands superior to truth."

So, answering the specific question in the same terms as Cueball asked it, is proof of simplistic thinking! Wow!

For the record, Michael Mandel's recent book on the US, called "Getting Away With Murder" is not at all bad. The chapter on Iraq at the beginning is excellent! But the chapters on Yugoslavia---they're way too critical of the US/NATO as compared with Milosevic, who gets a completely free ride.

quote:

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Michale Mandel has been a friend of mine for 20 years. But he is certainly an apologist for Milosevic.

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Certainly you have answered the question in a manner of speaking, but again there is nothing in this qoute that speak substantially to the issue of the letter, or as to why Mandel becomes an appologist fof Milosevic, especially when he makes it clear in his letter that Serbina crimes are inexcusable. All you have done is denounce Mandel.

Or is slander and guilt by association for the substance of your poilitical/legal critique.

Where is the beef?

[ 24 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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He seems to believe he knows better than the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, Amnesty International, the International Bar Association, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Red Cross, International Crisis Group, the Canadian Association of International Law, etc.

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I like to think for myself thank you. YOu should try it.

You continue the raise the specter of the mighty 'international legal and human rights community' as if you alone are privy to its secrets. Yet, despite your appeal to these august bodies of profound thought, you have not once sited a written document from one of them. You just assert that you know that they support you. Twice I have brought cogent legal opinions from well respected Canadian lawyers who rejct the ICTY and your position. Yet, you seem to think that anyone who opposes your view stands outside the legal community, and can therefore be discounted, out of hand simply by evoking the priests in the high temple.

Your logic amounts to that of a true believer: You use you book (ICTY) as evidence to prove the validity of the book.

Q: "How do we know that the bible is the word of god?"

A: "Because it says so in the bible!"

Here is another legal outlaw whose opinion can surely be discounted out of hand.Walter J. Rockler, a Washington lawyer, was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial:

quote:

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As justification for our murderously destructive bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, it is of course necessary for the U.S. to charge that the Serbs have engaged in inhuman conduct, and that President Slobodan Milosevic, the head Serb demon, is a war criminal almost without peer.

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Rather than using you adequate rhetorical skill to fill the air with so much chaff, why not site the evidence in opposition to the opinions of Michael Mandel, Eddie Greenspan and Walter Rockler.

Hmm? Try substance for a change?

quote:

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I think those of us who support international human rights have proven our case very sucessfully in the above thread based on documentation and the true accurate historical record of how the ICTY came about and how it is structured.

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Where? Nothing introduced speak to evidence Swallow (the only Pro-ICTY person interested in siting sources) introduces the following pieces:

• A biography of Izetbegovic, which does not amount to evidence.
• Sexual Violence as International crime. A piece that establish that sexual violence is a crime. Fine I agree, yet there is no evidence brought forward to establish that there was a systematic Serbian campaign of sexual violence. Some people simply asserted that there was one.
• A note on the fact that three Albanian-Kosovars have been charged. Something that I have never disputed.
  

I have introduced 4 sources that all directly relate to the evidence of war crimes that may have been committed, or legal interpretations of that evidence. Rikardo has intorduced a source (of dubious value), and Courage a neutral theoretical piece by Zisek. You have repsonded to none of them, except by name calling, creating strawmen, and appeals to the apparently 'unknowable' wisdom of higher authorities.

First you start out by asserting over and over and over again that there has been genocide, then you assert again and again and again that there has been evidence sited in this thread to support that contention, but anyone who bothers to look will see that there is not one sited source that speaks to the evidence of the war crimes that may or may not have been committed, except by those who oppose your view.

Assert away all you like, but your asserting that your assertions are facts, does not make them so, no matter how many times you make that assertion.

[ 24 September 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Please find for me a link to an Amensty International Report, (as I know you are fond of asserting that they support your position) that directly accuses Milosevic or the Serbian goverment of "genocide." Genocide was the crime used to justify the attack upon Serbia.

Drop us a line sometime, we'll all grab a beer. Jeff House will pay for the booze, I'll pay for the BBQ wings, Swallow will drive you home.

You the man, Bagdad Bob, you the hombre.

P.S. Love your work. When's the next "best of" DVD coming out?