Slobodan Milosevich has (have had) a point

[Lamed]

The Globe and Mail, July 06, 2001
Milosevic has a point

The former Serb leader has about as much chance of getting
a fair trial from this court as he had of defeating NATO
in an air war, says law professor MICHAEL MANDEL

Friday, July 6, 2001

Legal experts this week dismissed Slobodan Milosevic's condemnation of The Hague Tribunal as "unhelpful to his defence" and "unlikely to help him win an acquittal."

That's really rich. Mr. Milosevic has about as much chance of getting a fair trial from this court as he had of defeating NATO in an air war.

In fact there is a lot to be said for Mr. Milosevic's claim that the tribunal is "false tribunal, and indictments false indictments."When the former Serb leader said "This trial's aim is to produce false justification for the war crimes of NATO, committed in Yugoslavia," he was, in fact, just echoing the words of Michael Scharf, the man who wrote the original tribunal statute for then U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

Mr. Scharf wrote in October, 1999, in the Washington Post that "the tribunal was widely perceived within the government as little more than a public relations device and as a potentially useful policy tool." He said that indictments would serve "to isolate offending leaders diplomatically, strengthen the hand of their domestic rivals and fortify the international political will to employ economic sanctions or use force."

Treating the tribunal as a propaganda arm of NATO is, in fact, the only way to make sense of its violation of the principles of judicial impartiality. The indictment against Mr. Milosevic was issued on May 22, 1999, even as NATO's bombs were falling on Yugoslavia; most of the charges, concerning actions alleged to have occurred after the bombing had commenced, relied on undisclosed evidence supplied by none other than NATO itself. This in the middle of a war! An impartial prosecutor should have viewed such evidence as questionable.

If there were an honest tribunal in The Hague, Mr. Milosevic would not be the only government leader on trial. NATO's leaders, from Bill Clinton and Jean Chrйtien to Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar committed what the Nuremberg judgment called "the supreme international crime" -- resorting to war.

As chief prosecutor Robert Jackson said at Nuremberg: "An honestly defensive war is, of course, legal and saves those lawfully conducting it from criminality. But inherently criminal acts cannot be defended by showing that those who committed them were engaged in a war, when war itself is illegal."

NATO's war was a conscious violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. Was it a "humanitarian intervention" as some call it? Not likely. What was humanitarian about bombing Belgrade?

Let's not forget either the West's aggressive economic policies that plunged Yugoslavia into depression and civil war in the first place, or the sponsorship of Balkan republics on the basis of ethnic divisions that left huge minorities within them waiting only to be turned on by the majorities. Remember NATO's cultivation of the KLA, the compromising of every single chance of peace, from the Vance-Owen efforts in Bosnia to the farce of Rambouillet, to the bombing campaign itself.

The need to invent a new role for NATO after the Cold War, the U.S. effort to undermine the United Nations, a desire to make an example of those who think they can oppose American will, the appeal of waging a war without losing one American life in combat, even Monica Lewinsky -- all explain this war better than humanitarianism.

The statute of The Hague Tribunal does not include "aggressive war" as a crime. The U.S. didn't want it there, just as it didn't want it in the Rome Statute of 1998 that seeks to create an International Criminal Court. But the statute does include "crimes against humanity" including "murder" and "other inhumane acts."

I believe the NATO leaders planned and executed a bombing campaign that they knew was contrary to the most fundamental tenets of international law and that they knew would cause the death of hundreds of civilian children, women and men. They admitted this even as they apologized for what they called "collateral damage," the kind that happens in any war. Slobodan Milosevic was indicted for the murder of 385 victims. The NATO leaders killed at least 500 and perhaps as many as 1,800 people, without any legal excuse.

Then there are the Geneva Conventions and the "laws and customs of war" which make it a crime, even in a legal war, to kill and injure civilians intentionally or carelessly. These NATO leaders made targets of places and things with only tenuous or slight military value or no military value at all: city bridges, factories, hospitals, marketplaces, downtown and residential neighbourhoods, and television studios.

Michael Dobbs, Madeleine Albright's biographer, wrote in the Washington Post, in July, 1999, that "it is obvious to anyone who visited Serbia during the war that undermining civilian morale formed an essential part of the alliance's war-winning strategy."

So the only legal difference between Mr. Milosevic and the NATO leaders is that the Serb leader lost the war and stands now as an indicted war criminal, while they, the victors, are un-indicted war criminals.

Indeed, the NATO leaders never will be indicted. A year ago, Carla Del Ponte issued a report declaring that she was absolving the NATO leaders of their crimes without even opening an investigation. Read the report if you want to know how much sense Mr. Milosevic was talking at The Hague on Tuesday. Read the report by Amnesty International that came out at the same time.

Where Amnesty's report carefully details a whole host of war crimes against civilians, Ms. Del Ponte's reads like a brief for NATO. In fact, it was written by an ex-NATO lawyer, William J. Fenrick, Canadian Armed Forces frigate captain (ret.) who went to the tribunal directly from his post as director of law for operations and training in the Canadian Department of Defence.

The punch-line of this report comes at the end when it notes that the review of NATO's actions relied primarily on public documents produced by NATO. It explained that the committee "tended to assume that the NATO and NATO countries' press statements are generally reliable and that explanations have been honestly given."

Can you imagine what kind of law enforcement a country would have if the police took alleged criminals' explanations at face value? Yet, after a year, the tribunal declined to even open an investigation.

Contrast this approach to the Racak incident of Jan. 15, 1999, (the other major item in the Milosevic indictment), when prosecutor Louise Arbour flew to Kosovo, with CNN cameras on hand, and dramatically opened an investigation on the say-so of one U.S. diplomat. It took her just two weeks of consultations with NATO to declare the incident a war crime.

Mr. Milosevic may be guilty of the crimes he is alleged by Ms. Arbour and Ms. Del Ponte to have committed, but he'll never get a fair trial at The Hague. And the failure to prosecute NATO's crimes renders this tribunal worse than no tribunal at all.
Michael Mandel, professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, headed an international team of lawyers seeking to have NATO leaders charged with war crimes for the 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

Source

[george_jtf]

As much as I do not agree with many of Milosevic's politics, worst being the communist part, he was 100 percent right to try to defend his country and his fellow serbs. I will never ever deny that Serbs did not commit war crimes but:
1. muslims and croats did the same thing equal or more.
2. civil wars are the worst types of wars. one revenge after another. you cannot expect for some serbian soldiers to hold the hatred when members of their families are killed brutally. furthermore, ignoring those crimes commited against them only tells muslims and croats to continue the same brutal killings.
We did not see Serbs cutting off muslim and croat heads and then displaying it for everyone to see, but we did see muslims proudly showing off with cut-off heads of Serbs.

Milosevic was a war criminal as much as Thaci (albanian), Tudjman (croat), and Izetbegovic (muslim from bosnia). in other words, all of them should be tried, not just Milosevic....

[Nik_Srb]

As much as I do not agree with many of Milosevic's politics, worst being the communist part, he was 100 percent right to try to defend his country and his fellow serbs. I will never ever deny that Serbs did not commit war crimes but:
1. muslims and croats did the same thing equal or more.
2. civil wars are the worst types of wars. one revenge after another. you cannot expect for some serbian soldiers to hold the hatred when members of their families are killed brutally. furthermore, ignoring those crimes commited against them only tells muslims and croats to continue the same brutal killings.
We did not see Serbs cutting off muslim and croat heads and then displaying it for everyone to see, but we did see muslims proudly showing off with cut-off heads of Serbs.

Milosevic was a war criminal as much as Thaci (albanian), Tudjman (croat), and Izetbegovic (muslim from bosnia). in other words, all of them should be tried, not just Milosevic....

I seriously dough he was anywhere near as bad as the above mentioned monsters,if he was he'd still be in power in serbia no?(would have been no reason for the west to have him removed.)
So please just coz he is a socialist/commie doesn't mean he is anywhere near the above mentioned(tho by all means i do not proclaim him a saint!)

[4International]

As much as I do not agree with many of Milosevic's politics, worst being the communist part, he was 100 percent right to try to defend his country and his fellow serbs. I will never ever deny that Serbs did not commit war crimes but:
1. muslims and croats did the same thing equal or more.
2. civil wars are the worst types of wars. one revenge after another. you cannot expect for some serbian soldiers to hold the hatred when members of their families are killed brutally. furthermore, ignoring those crimes commited against them only tells muslims and croats to continue the same brutal killings.
We did not see Serbs cutting off muslim and croat heads and then displaying it for everyone to see, but we did see muslims proudly showing off with cut-off heads of Serbs.

Milosevic was a war criminal as much as Thaci (albanian), Tudjman (croat), and Izetbegovic (muslim from bosnia). in other words, all of them should be tried, not just Milosevic....

Shalom brother george_jtf,

I can see you mean well, but you are making a VERY SERIOUS MISTAKE by saying what you did above.

1) Milosevic was NOT a war criminal. He was way too SOFT on the Ustasha Croats, Bosnian and Albanian Muslim Nazis and kept betraying his own people when the pressure on Serbia became too high [eg., when he closed the borders with the Republic of Srpska which was then led by Dr. Radovan Karadzic]. This nonsense that "Milosevic was a war criminal" is a despicable LIE disseminated by the vile, disgusting traitorous liberal/leftist US, NATO and European Union political leaders, the muslim Nazi-appeasing corporate-controlled media and the leftist/liberal so-called "academic establishment".

2) The Serbs did NOT do anything but defend their lives and homes from the very same people - Ustasha Croats, Bosnian & Albanian muslim Nazis - who PERPETRATED A HOLOCAUST DURING WORLD WAR 2 resulting in the deaths of at least 1.2 Million Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia alone[the so-called Ustasha "Independent State of Croatia"].

3) The Bosnian & Albanian Muslim Nazis and the Croat Ustashe Nazis would MURDER SERBS or even their very own people [the way the Arab Muslim Nazis do in Gaza and Lebanon] AND THEN FILM THE CORPSES AND SCREAM: "Hey look at all these innocent civilians the Serbs killed! We demand that you bomb the Serbs now, UN & NATO!!"

4) Hashim Thaci - the former leader of the Albanian KLA - is a vile, monstrous, evil NAZI TERRORIST. Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovic - who are now both dead - were also evil NAZIS who wanted to see the Serbs either completely EXTERMINATED or at the very least subjugated to their respective religions: The Croat Ustasha Nazi brand of Roman Catholicism or the Bosnian Sunni [now predominantly Saudi Wahabbist] version of Islam. To compare Milosevic with Thaci, Tudjman or Izetbegovic is like comparing the victim of an attempted rape and murder who decides to fight back and ends up killing the attacker in self-defense. Would you put the victim in prison or execute him/her for killing - in self defense - the would be rapist and murderer?! I think not!!

I think you need to watch this video where Chaim Ben Pesach EXPLICITLY WARNS OUR SERBIAN FRIENDS NOT TO CALL THEMSELVES "WAR CRIMINALS".

Listen very CAREFULLY to Chaim's explanation as to why doing so hands the vicious, murderous enemies of the Serbs a victory on a silver platter!


http://www.flix.co.il/tapuz/showVideo.asp?m=1965579

[4International]

Babies Cut from Mothers’ Wombs (Warning: Graphic Visuals at Bottom)
Posted by Julia Gorin

...Aside from the Albanian penchant for lying, and the advice of Albanian elders and politicians that rape of Serbs should be policy, what diminishes Albanian credibility on rape charges — at least widespread, systematic rape — is what a Yugoslav soldier told one of my sources speaking on behalf of himself and other soldiers he knew — namely that by the time of the Kosovo conflict, the Serbs were so disgusted by Muslims in general that the thought of having intercourse with one was the farthest thing from their minds.

The phenomenon outlined in this post was summed up as early as 1992 by Gregory Copley, editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy:

"Pictures of dead or wounded (or raped) Serbs often fill the screens of the world’s television and print media, only to be re-labelled as dead or wounded or raped Croats or Muslims. Many Serbian victims — and the bulk of the victims of the conflict, contrary to popular reports, have been Serbs either from Bosnia and Herzegovina or from Croatia–not only suffer the indignity of defeat in death; they also are used in death as models in the macabre image, manipulation operation of the Croatians and the Muslim Bosnians. If the Vietnam War was lost to the United States by the negative television images of its own reporters, then the Balkan wars against the Serbs are being won by Ustashi Croatia and the Muslim Bosnians by an active, planned manipulation of international television".


http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=1550

[Lamed]

Thank you 4International I wouldn't have put it (explain it) better even myself.

God bless u!

[george_jtf]

As much as I do not agree with many of Milosevic's politics, worst being the communist part, he was 100 percent right to try to defend his country and his fellow serbs. I will never ever deny that Serbs did not commit war crimes but:
1. muslims and croats did the same thing equal or more.
2. civil wars are the worst types of wars. one revenge after another. you cannot expect for some serbian soldiers to hold the hatred when members of their families are killed brutally. furthermore, ignoring those crimes commited against them only tells muslims and croats to continue the same brutal killings.
We did not see Serbs cutting off muslim and croat heads and then displaying it for everyone to see, but we did see muslims proudly showing off with cut-off heads of Serbs.

Milosevic was a war criminal as much as Thaci (albanian), Tudjman (croat), and Izetbegovic (muslim from bosnia). in other words, all of them should be tried, not just Milosevic....

I seriously dough he was anywhere near as bad as the above mentioned monsters,if he was he'd still be in power in serbia no?(would have been no reason for the west to have him removed.)
So please just coz he is a socialist/commie doesn't mean he is anywhere near the above mentioned(tho by all means i do not proclaim him a saint!)

Shalom Brother 4International,

I have family from RSK (Republic of Srpska Krajina), who were kicked out of the Nazi Croatia in 1995. Why?
Because of Milosevic's unwillingness to help them when they needed the most. More than half a million serbs from Bosnia and Krajina were forced to leave their ancient homelands because Milosevic did not want to help eventhough he had every right to do so not only in 1991, but also in 1993 & 1995. That is a crime, crime towards your own people.
In 1991, Serbian military from RSK came within 15 miles of Zagreb, and then Milosevic told them "go back". Imagine if that didn't happen. There would today still be RSK and it would be part of Greater Serbia, a country that I always wished for.
1993, serbs from Bosnia were in the center of Bihac, an extremely important town in Northwest Bosnia. Actually, the whole battle wasn't even started by the Serbs, but by the Muslims, who when they saw that the offense in that battle turned into a Serbian counter-offence, ran. Once again, Milosevic said "pull back". If Milosevic did not say "stop", war in Bosnia would have ended in 1993, RSK would be a even stronger reality (due to the geographical importance of Bihac), and Serb Republic would have been 70% of Bosnia, not 49. Turks (as we call muslims from bosnia) would have no other option but to accept that they will lose the entire war if they do not agree to the then-terms.
In 1995, when RSK was over-ran by Croatian Nazis, Yugoslav Army (under control of Milosevic) had a FULL RIGHT to defend the Serbs from RSK because it was an agreement by both sides that in case Croatian Nazis attack RSK for any reason, Yugoslav Army was required to defend Serbs from RSK. That didn't happen.
In 1999, Serbian forces were almost done with KLA, the albanian terroris group in Kosovo. To be more exact, KLA was beaten to the last hill...once again, Milosevic said "pull back". So close and you mess it up.
 
Yugoslav Army, even after the break-up of the country, was way better armed than Slovenia, Croatia or Muslim part of Bosnia and was more professional. They didn't do nothing. They even threatened to stop supplying the arms for Serbs from Krajina and Bosnia if they didn't do as Milosevic told them.

If you are in a war, you do not stop when you are so close to your goals. You must understand that Serbs always do better in war then at the negotiating table. The way I look at it, you first finish the war and then you negotiate because then, all the playing cards are now in your corner.

Did he deserve to go to Hague? Absolutely not. If anything, he should have been tried in Serbia for treason. We all know that Hague Trials are nothing other than the West's way of saying "we were right, you Serbs werent".

To say that Serbs didn't commit any war crimes is plain idiocracy. As I mentioned earlier, even I cannot expect serbs to commit such crimes after loosing so many in WW II and during the war. When you kill someone's entire family, you cannot expect them to just act normal in the war and I fully understand that. At the same time, if Serbs didn't kill any Muslims or Croats in the form of revenge, it would tell Muslims and Croats that it is a green light for them to continue doing it.

I am still a strong believer in Greater Serbia.

During Milosevic's trial in Hague, one of his former allies Vojislav Seselj (leader of the Serbian Radical Party) was one of milosevic's witnesses. When one of Hague's judges asked Seselj if Milosevic was for Greater Serbia, Seselj said "no, Milosevic was for Yugoslavia, not Greater Serbia. I was for the Greater Serbia."

Did the Serbs kill that many Muslims and Croats during the war? Of course not, but for the western traitors US and Western Europeans' public, the number of 300,000 muslims (we can only wish) killed sounds better for public opinion than the factual 20,000 (if that many).......
Media control is the today the most powerful weapon in any war.

Few years back, I met someone who was in the Srebrenica operations. When I asked them about the imaginary 8,000 muslims brutally killed (another fake number created by the western media), he told me that around 2,000 were killed for one simple reason: revenge for almost 4,500 serbs killed by the Al-Quaeda trained towelheads in the villages near Srebrenica....................

I am always for justice, not for injustice.
I hope this expalins my reasoning.

[4International]

To say that Serbs didn't commit any war crimes is plain idiocracy. As I mentioned earlier, even I cannot expect serbs to commit such crimes after loosing so many in WW II and during the war.

Shalom brother george_jtf,

I have always maintained the same position that you do: that Slobodan Milosevic was way too soft on the Serbs' murderous enemies and that he always betrayed his people [ie committed treason] when the pressure on Serbia became too high [eg threats of US/NATO bombing or continued UN economic and cultural sanctions]. But that does NOT make Milosevic a "war criminal" as he was accused by the socialist EU and the vicious beasts Bill & Hillary Clinton.

However if you have already viewed the video by Chaim which I provided the link for above, you will see that Chaim clearly states that killing your enemy is NOT a "war crime" but is an act of self-defense!!

I do not classify what the Serbs did to the Bosnian and Albanian Muslim Nazis or the Croat Ustasha Nazis as a "war crime" any more than what the IDF did to the Arab Muslim Nazis in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead or during the war against Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006.


So please understand that it depends on how you define a so-called "war crime". I 100% agree with Chaim that the Serbs were acting in self-defense and that any so-called "war crimes" the Serbs were accused of from 1991 to 1999 was actually perpetrated by the Bosnian and Albanian Muslim Nazis as well as the Croatian Ustasha Nazis in order to score propaganda points and instigate NATO bombing [eg the infamous "Racak massacre" Hoax in January 1999]

See for example the superb articles by Professor Francisco Gil-White exposing these many HOAXES against Israel and Serbia:

http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/guide-yugo.htm


PS: [remember: the Nazis (or "National Socialists") were socialist as were the Fascists since they both practised COLLECTIVISM - where the State reigns supreme over the individual and the individual does NOT exist as a free and independent person, but is instead treated as part of a larger COLLECTIVE].

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

3) The Bosnian & Albanian Muslim Nazis and the Croat Ustashe Nazis would MURDER SERBS or even their very own people [the way the Arab Muslim Nazis do in Gaza and Lebanon] AND THEN FILM THE CORPSES AND SCREAM: "Hey look at all these innocent civilians the Serbs killed! We demand that you bomb the Serbs now, UN & NATO!!"

This is exactly what the Tamil Muslim Nazis (allies of the KLA in south Asia) in Sri Lanka do today. The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) are infamous for killing civilians trying to flee the fighting and then calling in the petrosheik media to claim that the Sri Lankan military did it.

[Nik_Srb]

worms not people...

[sonja_yu]

As for this dispute, he can't be compared to those three, but he betrayed Serbs of Krajina and that part is not to be forgiven to him.
Yet, he was FAR from what he was represented (remember that on the covers of the book "The butcher of the Balkans" he was represented like Hitler with right arm up).

[Nik_Srb]

funny how serb leaders have the tittle of butcher,radovan karadzic they call the butcher of bosnia etc...
tho imho Milosevic was FAR FAR better the these bastards today

[Mario]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

[Dan]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

  ok, so where do you stand on the Serb issue?
           Are you a Croat because I don't know of any Serbs named Mario... Introduce yourself and make your position know!

[Mario]

Im italian-canadian. I think I just made my point clear. Whats with the attitude?

[Dan]

You initial remark was one of criticism... I don't think that's the Best way to make a 1st impression.
  If your sympathetic to JTF's cause and wish to add your 2 cents you're more than welcome to contribute and even criticise.

[Mario]

Thats what I thought I was doing. And btw its "criticize" not "criticise."

 

[Americanhero1]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

  ok, so where do you stand on the Serb issue?
           Are you a Croat because I don't know of any Serbs named Mario... Introduce yourself and make your position know!

Hey now don't insult Croatians by assuming he is one

[Americanhero1]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

Oh of course all Croats are scum magarac 

[Mario]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

  ok, so where do you stand on the Serb issue?
           Are you a Croat because I don't know of any Serbs named Mario... Introduce yourself and make your position know!

Hey now don't insult Croatians by assuming he is one

Holy [censored] pal, whats your problem?

[Mario]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

Oh of course all Croats are scum magarac 

So you agree with me or not??

[Americanhero1]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

Oh of course all Croats are scum magarac 

So you agree with me or not??

No I don't agree with you

[Mario]

alright....

[Nik_Srb]

i have a bosnian serb friend named mario,so :-D

Don't for get,the last war was pushed on croatians as well,not all of them wanted it,infact a lot wanted to stay in a same country with us,but the ustasha propaganda at the time was very good,but imo,what you do every day counts,doesn't matter if you chose to call ur self a croat...

[Jasmina]

If serbs keep clinging to these war criminals as your "heroes"  you will never move ahead in Europe. Your enemies in your region are in phases of joining EU and NATO. That does not bode well for Serbs. You cant let this happen. Blind support for these guys plays right into the hands of Bosnian muslims and facist Croatian scum. Something to think about...

  Serbs don't need to enter in EU!