And now that the West has Karadzic | 68 comments (68 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Excerpts (none / 0)

Hmm. Sound like there was a nasty war going on. Does that mean that if you fight and lose a war, you're a war criminal? Or are there some other 'universal' rules that exist and that were disregarded by Radovan Karadzic and his accomplices?

by vladimir on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:00:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 3)

Gotovina won a nasty war, yet he is under trial.

By your definition, there is no such thing as "war criminal".

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:06:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (none / 1)

You're right. Croatia did win the war - which is why their political and military leadership is - by and large - NOT being prosecuted for ethnically cleansing 250 000 Serbs from Krajina and Slavonia, or their tens of thousands of Serbian and Muslim victims.

Gotovina was an attempt to show that The Hague is not a biased court seeking to demonize Serbs, whereas the figures prove otherwise. The overwhelming majority of those tried and convicted are Serb.

Based on historic observation, a war criminal is almost always on the losing side.

Do you think that the British incineration of Cologne in WW2 was a crime? What about Nagasaki? What about the circa 700 000 dead in Iraq?

Unfortunately, it's always a question of power and politics... not justice.

by vladimir on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:26:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (none / 1)

So are you saying that the Serbian Government is complicit in this demonisation process seeing as they are the ones handing him over to the ICTY?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:30:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (none / 0)

I believe that given the Tribunal's outrageous acquittal of Haradinaj and Oric, the new government of Serbia is not serving justice by handing Karadzic over to The Hague.

by vladimir on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:36:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 7)

Two injustices don't make one.

And for your information,

it was not the acquittal that was outrageous, but the lack of Western action (because it wasn't all in the Tribunals' power) to protect the witnesses whose non-appearance necessitated the acquittal,
the Haradinaj case is not over: the prosecutors are on appeal, and two Kosovo Albanians were indicted for contempt of court for organising the pressurizing of a witness.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:41:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 2)

Your argument re WWII leads logically to the conclusion that the Nazis were unfairly targeted, just like Karadzic. Do you really want to pursue the parallel?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:31:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 6)

The ICTY is imperfect, but your claim of one-sidedness goes way too far. Gotovina is not the only Croatian indictee (chech the list), but the highest-ranked. Unlike Milosević, Tuđman was dead by 1999 (the year Milo was indicted).

If you believe that an objective trial would have found equal numbers of suspected war criminals among the conflict sides, you have to prove that the war crimes were really equally shared. (It's not enough to prove that the Croatian, Bosniak and Kosovo Albanian sides committed war crimes, too.)

Your words about history are a diversion from the current case. But for your information, I do think that fire bombing by Britain was a war crime (even if there were far more more German war criminals in WWII, thus even an international war tribunal in place of Nuremburg should have shown similar ratios as the ICTY today), and so are nuclear bombs on cities.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:37:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (none / 1)

Croatia did not win this war.NATO did.Croatia was lucky this time to be on a winer side...this was not always case with Croatia.They joined Hitler in WWII but they jumped the winner's wagon toward the end of WWII.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

by vbo on Fri Jul 25th, 2008 at 11:00:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 4)

re there some other 'universal' rules that exist and that were disregarded by Radovan Karadzic and his accomplices?

Well the charges would relate to the fourth Geneva convention from a brief view of them.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:17:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 14)

Or are there some other 'universal' rules that exist and that were disregarded by Radovan Karadzic and his accomplices?

Yes.

You're trying to rant at a crowd containing lots of people who would cheerfully drag Bush x 2, Blair, and a collection of EU leaders and a load of their minions into the same court for assorted war crimes. We'd also throw Putin in the dock, along with pretty much all the leaders in ex-Yugoslavia. You're not likely to get much sympathy for Karadzic. The problem is not that he's being prosecuted, it's that other people aren't.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:22:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 7)

I don't mean to rant. Just wanna share my pain.

by vladimir on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:32:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (none / 1)

great cpmment, colman.

everyone likes to see justice done....

to someone else...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sun Jul 27th, 2008 at 02:47:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Excerpts (4.00 / 3)

the creation of impossible conditions of life, involving persecution and terror tactics...deportation...liquidation...inflicting terror...kill(ing) thousands...

of civilians don't come under any "universal rules" that you know of?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Jul 24th, 2008 at 09:23:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

And now that the West has Karadzic | 68 comments (68 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Top Diaries

First Utility-Run Geothermal System in USAmerica

Ireland 2023 Rugby World Cup Squad selected

Integrating Ukraine Into NATO Family

Leinster's demise and Munster's hope

Southern Irish disinterest in Northern Ireland affairs

Joe Biden. America's Interventionist Hero

Recent Diaries

First Utility-Run Geothermal System in USAmerica

The last thing Sinn Féin want...

Europe Already Lost the Gas War with Russia

NATO Stoltenberg Should Resign

NATO Posing the What If Question

Bi-Partisan Effort to Undermine Democracy

June 2023

Ireland 2023 Rugby World Cup Squad selected

Integrating Ukraine Into NATO Family

Southern Irish disinterest in Northern Ireland affairs

Incident Ukrainian War Display Gets Int'l Attention

German Climate Activists Group Outlawed

Leinster's demise and Munster's hope

Joe Biden. America's Interventionist Hero

Targeted Assassinations: a Bankrupt Strategy

Hijacking Peace by Zelensky for War Escalation

May 2023

U.S. Provoked Conflict In Europe

U.S. Will Be Ousted From Middle-East

Settler Extremism Blessed by Jerusalem Leaders

Occasional Series