Milosevic is dead. Hooray?*

Well I can’t say that I am shedding any tears over the death of Slobodan Milosevic, I do think it’s a bad thing he died just now. There are too many who did not see justice done.
Then again, maybe a verdict would not have convinced the people who most vehemently support him either.
I’m left with the feeling he’s left to God’s justice, Earthly justice was at no point up to the task!

The murder of about 100 people is a minor crime? It is quite clear that this case has been chosen because it has his signature over the documents; not to mention the fact Saddam has held his hand up in court. I’m sure those who suffered in Dujail will see it as justice, not victor’s justice.

Still, as always, let’s make this about ourselves and not about Iraqis.

It just shows that you can’t put politics or history on trial. You can judge politics only politically, not legally.

Yes, for the Western public the Milosevic trial in The Hague is much better than the Saddam trial in Baghdad. But for the domestic publics concerned, it’s just the opposite.

The Milosevic trial had a huge negative impact on domestic politics in Serbia, and an external judgement somewhere in The Hague only contributed to that. For Serbia at least, it would have been much better if he had been put on trial in Belgrade first (and then later perhaps in The Hague).

Likewise, it’s one of the very few stabilizing factors in Iraq that Saddam is on trial in Baghdad rather than abroad because opposition to Saddam is one of the few things that unites a majority of Iraqis.

Try not to see the Milosevic and Saddam trials only from a Western angle; try to imagine what Serbians and Iraqis feel about it.

louis proyect–

Thank you for vividly illustrating the political outlook of Milosevic supporters.

He was a monomaniacal moral monster, and you have clearly caught more than a touch of his monomania.

So, the Sydney Telegraph cheered (even if cautiously) when the Father Of Peoples died. How did the Leader and Teacher of Mankind manage to enrage Australians this much? Weird.

Apparently the Genius of Humanity is as popular as ever.

Did the extreme right love Milosevic? Well, who knows. All I know is that a rogue’s gallery of Democratic Party politicians in the USA, German Greens and social democrats, New Labour politicians et al were eager to demonstrate that they could punish “fascists” in the same way that previous generations did. I would say that this disgusting Orwellian turn had a lot to do with the rush to war in Iraq, which was promoted by the ultraright wing now in power. Lesson? The enemy of world peace is liberal and conservative politicians acting on behalf of multinational corporations.

ab: For Serbia at least, it would have been much better if he had been put on trial in Belgrade first (and then later perhaps in The Hague).

Hmm. So, if a Serbian court had found the hero of the last decade innocent, the Serbian government would have promptly rearrested him and shipped him off to be tried again in the Hague? Pardon my scepticism.
Not guilty would have been the most likely outcome. Next most likely – a conviction on some petty charge (corruption, say, or some minor abuse of power), followed by, say, two years in a comfortable prison or in “house arrest”.
For the sake of soothing Serb feelings, were we supposed to risk letting him get away?

To formalize this thing in legal terms, you’d prbably have to make acts of whipping up nationalist hysteria by national leaders illegal, make it an international crime. Yet this has probably been one of the most reliable tools in politics for the last 5000 years.

Still, the long, and now abortive, trial in The Hague is better than the alternative on offer in Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein, whose wars cost millions of lives, is being tried, and may be executed, for a comparatively minor crime, but one which is politically convenient for the purposes of victors’ justice.

Looks like we have a new irregular verb:

I try a monster for war crimes.

You start a politically convenient proceeding.

He imposes victors’ justice.

“You slay your monsters.”

Well you ought to anyway.

I am not sure what are the “wrong reasons”. Is it wrong to insist on the imperialist character of the war against the Serbs? Is it wrong to point out that the West is very selective about which “monsters” it goes to war against? Turkey has killed far more Kurds than Albanians were killed by the Serbs, but Turkey is extolled as a friend of democracy. Chomsky once pointed out that there is no inconsistency about all this. The USA is highly consistent in choosing who it decides to go to war against. The targets are universally perceived as threats to US strategic and economic interests. All the bullshit about human rights and stopping fascism is merely public relations of the sort that every side adopted in WWI, with the dastardly Hun, etc. What sticks in my craw, however, is the tendency of liberal media whores to treat this bullshit as if it were Faberge jewels.

Saddam is not being tried for war crimes, even though there is ample documentary evidence that he gave the orders to engage in aggressive war that caused millions of deaths in the Iran-Iraq war. The reason is not lack of evidence, but the complicity of the victors.

Far be it from me to defend Saddam Hussein, but “[giving] the orders to engage in aggressive war”–even a terrible, cruel one “that caused millions of deaths”–isn’t a war crime, John, and you know it. No doubt there were war crimes committed during that conflict, but tracing those to Saddam Hussein himself might well be a difficult legal task–hence, the choice of one particularly well-documented atrocity as the focus of Saddam’s trial.

Of course, you could have mentioned a great many other of Saddam’s large-scale atrocities that really were war crimes or crimes against humanity. But you chose instead to pass off a nonsensical non-example as evidence of “victors’ justice”. The reason is not lack of evidence, but rather (I assume) the desire to attempt a lame cheap shot at the US, even at the cost of your last shred of logical coherence.

The actual crime for which he is being tried is one that, if he were still on the victors’ side, would be regarded as merely a regrettable excess in the war against terrorism: compare Fallujah, Grozny etc.

Yes, Saddam is on trial, while many other war criminals and assorted monsters go free. Likewise for Milosevic, whose crimes pale in comparison with those of, say, Saddam Hussein (whose being brought to justice you bitterly opposed), and who, like Saddam Hussein himself, was brought to justice thanks to the American military, and no thanks at all to the UN.

But when suitably anti-American (and obviously incompetent) UN jurists are allowed to control the (botched) prosecution of a war criminal, you choose the first-person form: “I try a monster for war crimes”. Only when an Iraqi tribunal, part of an Iraqi government that was freely elected (although scandalously lacking in anti-American credentials), looks to be successfully bringing a world-class butcher to account for his crimes, do you pick the third-person form: “he imposes victors’ justice”.

What an irregular verb, indeed!

“Likewise for Milosevic, whose crimes pale in comparison with those of, say, Saddam Hussein (whose being brought to justice you bitterly opposed), and who, like Saddam Hussein himself, was brought to justice thanks to the American military, and no thanks at all to the UN.”

Now there is a point routinely ignored on Crooked Timber.

Sure, if you won’t see distinctions you won’t see distinctions.

Obviously if you are an Iraqi baathist, Serbian nationalist, Zionist or American exceptionalist, you’ll see distinctions. But that’s why lady justice is supposed to be blind.

I’ll only say that when former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review is writing:

…The numerous civilians killed by US interventions are just as dead as the ones killed by heads of state attempting to hold on to their countries. Why are the latter deaths war crimes but not the former?

…it becomes quite clear who’s representing an eccentric and fringe view of justice here.

Bizarre indeed. You complained that “Saddam is not being tried for war crimes, even though there is ample documentary evidence that he gave the orders to engage in aggressive war that caused millions of deaths in the Iran-Iraq war.” I pointed out that that wasn’t a war crime, you cited the Nuremberg trials, and I noted that the Nuremberg indictments explicitly distinguished “waging aggressive war” from “war crimes”. Why are you having trouble understanding this?

(On the plus side, at least you’re no longer contesting my point that Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic were both brought to justice thanks to the US, with no help from the UN.)

He supports this with a link which tells us the U.S. was threatening to suspend aid, but: “The aid was not conditional on Milosevic’s arrest and there has been no official U.S. reaction to the arrest.”

Sorry about that, Kevin–the explanation of events in the CNN article I linked to was, I admit, a little oblique. Here are some more explicit accounts….

From Jane’s:

As the US Congress-imposed 31 March deadline approached, it became obvious that Kostunica would stubbornly resist allowing Milosevic to be arrested under any charge. However, barely two weeks before the deadline Djindjic visited Washington – and decided to take action despite Kostunica’s opposition and obstruction.

From the Washington Post:

At stake is $50 million in U.S. assistance that has not yet been disbursed. The Yugoslav government had sought to appease Washington partly by arresting Milosevic on domestic criminal charges — laying the groundwork for his eventual extradition to the tribunal, some officials said.

From Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Carko Kovac, interviewed on CNN:

SESNO: As you know, and as we have reported, there was a deadline of sorts imposed by the United States of tomorrow to see some progress made toward bringing Mr. Milosevic to justice, that being tied to about $100 million of U.S. aid. How much did that influence the events of today?

KOVAC: Well, frankly we are completely aware of the realities of this world, and obviously no government can function in some vacuum; you have to understand that many things in this world are interconnected. But basically, I must emphasize this, basically he’s been arrested when we had sufficient evidence against him.