MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE

Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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• discussion archive

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 1:28 am
  "If I'm the president, we're going to have emergency-room care, we're going to have gag orders" -(G.W. Bush)

  CNN must be under a GAG order......- The question is - was it imposed by the Tribunal or the White House......
  
  vytas abrutis
  phila
  PA usa

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 3:02 am
  JP, you might be surprised how little difference there is between the US and Islamist fundamentalism when you are potentially on the receiving end of nuclear warheads. If W is hopping mad, why should he be an exception? Pera put it well: how can we trust George W Bush? You say that he wants to root out Islamist fundamentalism out of the world. How do you know that? Where has he ever said that? It may be that those who have ears to hear will hear such stuff, but such telepathic diplomacy is hardly anything to build on in Europe. George W. Bush is not going to stay in power for ever, and even if we have managed to read his thought correctly, the next administration won't give a damn about his thoughts. They will judge him by his actions, and if he is found wanting, the price will be paid by foreign countries that were stupid enough to go along with him on telepathy.

  So what we need is a clear commitment from Bush. If he wants to fight Islamist fundamentalism, then he should not be talking about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That is a very simple rule.

  That is a start. You also said that Wesley Clark should be court marshalled. Now you are getting warmer. He should. Or do you just say that because you know he won't? Anyway, it is not enough to say that Clinton picked the wrong horse. If he did, he should pay his losses.

  Islamist fundamentalism is a real threat. I think we have the right to talk about it, until Islam takes away our freedom of speech. The problem is how to solve the Islamist threat. It doesn't help bickering who contributed to its rise. The Soviet Union supported it in Iran, the US supported it back in Afghanistan. It helps even less to argue whether it was the Democrats or the Republicans who contributed to its rise. The Republicans supported it in Aghanistan, the Democrats supported it in the Balkans.

  On the other hand, it is true that Papa Bush started messing up really bad in the Balkans when he was in power. However, I don't believe it was his idea to support militant Islam. He just fell to his own trap. It was Papa Bush who was trying to lure Turkey, the great democratic success story in the Middle East, to the Balkans. He thought he could consolidate the secular variety of a Muslim country in the Middle East and tried to further the Turkish contacts with the European structures by rewarding Turkey with a bit of power in the Balkans.

  That was a mistake, and Clinton only took the logical step by supporting militant Islam. Turkey then took a full swing, and if democracy is defined as the power of the majority, I guess a "democratic" Turkey would quit being a secular society altogether. So if the Islamic theocracies are the threat, then the Americans should really start retracing their steps. Turkey would love to see the Caliphate restored, and guess where they got the idea.

  Le Pen was a joke before the presidential elections and he is a joke now, but he wasn't a joke during the presidential elections. If Le Pen is a joke, so is Seselj. Chirac can't have manoeuvred Jospin out of the picture only to run against Le Pen. Jospin may have done the dirty job in Palestine, but now Jospin is out, Chirac has to do it himself, at the risk of being nuked. Chirac is just as much for the Muslims as Jospin, and he will certainlty continue to be, now that he became president by winning Le Pen, and he has to keep his promises, so he can stay in power as long as possible and thus away from the police investigation into his corrupt past. This is the difference between Blair and Chirac at the moment.

  All the talk about expulsions and stuff is far-fetched at this point, but let us picture Europe after Iraq II. It all depends on Israel. The Jewish World Report said that Israel will again pay the price by making deals with the Palestinians only to appease the Muslim anger. This also shows that if the US really wants to appease the Muslims, it is Israel, not the Balkans, that the US makes pay the price. On the other hand, Israel has so deplorable experiences of appeasing the Muslims, which happened in Oslo in 2000 (thus after the Kosovo bombing), that it may just go ahead with the threat to expel the Palestinians, once the American foothold in Iraq has been established and the Likud in Israel has the leverage it needs.

  Then is the time for Europe to make some pretty tough decisions. I don't think the Israel-US axis will accept any easy solutions. Of course, until the next administration change.

  JP, it may be a stretch to compare Bush to Hitler, but don't start shifting the blame once again. It is the Americans who keep bombarding us with the inept WW II rhetoric, and if the US wants introduce the WW II setting to coax France and Germany into action, where is the Hitler this time? Saddam with his "weapons of mass destruction"? Or is it France and Germany themselves? So why not Bush for a change?

  Walter said something very appropriate about the common law system, which may determine the direction in the ICTY. The judge focuses on the event at hand, not the events that led to it. That is why people are jumping in the Anglo-American world(even in academic circles) when they see disturbing images on their TV screens. Like the pictures from the Balkans.

  But why not jump at the images from Palestine? They are pretty shocking too. The answer is that the Israeli-Palestine conflict has deeper roots, and the Arabs wanted to push the Jews to the sea in 1949, and then came the Jordanian rule, etc. etc. So to make sense of the Palestinian conflict, even the Americans are willing to consider the past, and that will indeed make the Israelis look quite good. However, that contradicts the "spirit" of common law. But if it does, it is not "fair" to take the roots of the conflict into account in Palestine and ignore them in the Balkans.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 3:44 am
  

  The ICTY is not transmitting: either the trial is in close session, which I doubt since the witness is a British journalist or Mr. Milosevic is sick.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 3:55 am
  

  There other possibilities of course, for example judge May (NATO) may have tripped over Robinson's (COLONIAL) robe and deprive the troika of his pressence.

  
  
  G C
  Conn., USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:03 am
  

  While the Americans withold financial aid the EU declares the tribunal will not be a consideration in lending money to Serbia. Two rather different positions. But, since the primary condition for the low of capital is peace and stability the specter of war shows its ugly face once more and we know where it comes from:

  Renewed Conflict Looms in the Balkans
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:12 am
  Gogol

  I bet Slobo must be sick. As Mirko Scumbag Klarin from IWPR often says, Milosevic always gets sick when he is put on the spot and the trial is not going well for him and the prosecution has the upper hand. LOL... LOL... Maybe Slobo has another hostile witness up his sleeve.

  Then again, it could just be that it's Mr Nice who is sick this time. I thought I saw him clasping his forehead with both hands the other day. LOL... LOL He's probably running a fever and is feeling hot under the collar again.
  
  David
  Australia

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:12 am
  Gogol, that link is about Iraq. Did you wish to highlight the difference between the US aid and the EU lending? Surely, "aid" to a country which is not at peace would qualify as "sanction-busting".
  
  J N
  Finland

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:16 am
  Then again it may be that they're not in session because May is sick too. How is he supposed to rule Milosevic is guilty as charged with the sort of help he's been getting from the prosecution. Man! What a headache he must be having!
  
  David
  Australia

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:24 am
  

  Sorry, I did not clear the last urrl, this is the one I wanted to link to:

  Renewed Conflict Looms in the Balkans The issue of Iraq and US propaganda, past and present is certainly relevant to the events in Yugoslavia.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:27 am
  J.P.,

  You said, "I don't believe a Republican administration would have bombed Serbia and in fact the Republicans voted against the bombing."

  You should remember that a Republican administration would have been a Bob Dole administration. Here is an AP article from September 29, 1999 about Bob Dole's position on Kosovo: Bob Dole Backs Kosovo Independence
  By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - "Kosovo should seek independence from Yugoslavia, but it must hold free elections and support democratic principles if it wants international support," says former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.

  Dole cautioned, however, that Kosovo's Albanian majority, in particular the Kosovo Liberation Army, could lose that support if it should turn its back on those rinciples.

  The 1996 Republican presidential candidate from Kansas, who served as an envoy to Kosovo this year for the Clinton administration, testified Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

  Dole criticized both the Republican Bush and the Democratic Clinton administrations for not dealing more firmly with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

  "We could and should have acted against Milosevic much earlier," Dole said, which he said would have avoided much bloodshed.

  "Early intervention is far less costly and often just as effective as belated intervention," Dole said. "Half-measures yieldhalf-results."

  So long as Kosovo's leaders agree to hold free elections, renounce violence and move toward a market economy, "then I believe independence will be forthcoming and should be."

  At the White House, President Clinton said the administration has not changed its support for an autonomous but not independent Kosovo within Yugoslavia.

  "What we have supported for Kosovo, and what we continue to support, is autonomy," he said during a White House meeting with Turkey's prime minister, Bulent Ecevit.

  Dole served as a go-between with Kosovo Albanians for the Clinton administration this year in an effort to get support for a peace plan from Kosovo activists.

  More recently, he traveled to the region in July in his capacity as chairman of the International Commission on Missing Persons.

  While Milosevic's troops heavily damaged Albanian homes and businesses, Dole said, "his forces did remarkably little damage to Kosovo's infrastructure and natural resources."

  He said multibillion-dollar reconstruction projects many had envisioned may not be necessary.

  Copyright © 1999 The Associated Press

  * * * * * The Republican's aren't innocent here either.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:27 am
  

  David,

  What time is it in you neck of the woods? Here is early as the posting's time says and I hate to get up so early to be let down by the ICTY!
  
  G C
  Conn., USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:28 am
  For those Europeans who have ever wonder - and for those who never have - how it felt for the Serbs to be at the receiving end of the "Nazi" slurs, here is an article from yesterday's Jewish World Review. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will.html . The US propaganda is running red hot, and it is making sure that when the nukes start falling, we only have ourselves to blame.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 4:41 am
  

  A nice example of fascist talk indeed:

  Euroepan arrogance does not understand American arrogance , unless the Yanks win the gamble of Iraq!

  Messieurs et mesdames faites vos jeux!
  
  G C
  USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 5:13 am
  

  Gogol, it's 8.35 pm (20.35h). I get to watch the circus (Greatest Show on Earth since the Nazi War Crimes trials) till past midnight.

  Funny how all the media reports seem to bypass Gen Vasiljevic's cross examination and Captain Dragan's testimony and cross examination as well as the prosecution's cross examination of its own witness.

  If ever one needed proof of the extent to which the western media are controlled this must be a prime example.

  To all those who are happy to assume the US and Britain saved Europe in WW2, let me just remind you that while the Russians were struggling against Nazi Germany, the Allies sat on the sidelines observing the Russian Holocaust (20 million people)until the Russians finally kicked Hitler's butt. Then they entered the fray in mid to late 1944 not to stop Hitler but to stop the Russians getting to Berlin and even as far as Paris. So much for the West's humanitarian propaganda!

  And to top it all off, they managed to bomb their Serbian allies at the end of WW2 ostensibly to get the Germans out of eastern Yugoslavia. In fact, the bombing was purely because eastern Yugoslavia was designated as going into the Soviet sphere of influence. Western Yugoslavia, ie Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia which had just as many Germans and Fascist forces wasn't bombed as it was designated as going to the West.

  Tito messed up the scenario but guess what! The free, democratic humanitarian US and UK finally managed to correct this in the last decade with Nato bombs. And as a bonus they get Serbia now too.

  Just goes to show that there is no room any more for such things as independent nation states if the hyenas want a piece of your property.

  What we are seeing is the acceleration of globalisation (colonialisation) while there is no ideological or military opposition. By the time it surfaces, such opposition will have been nullified through laws which will forbid dissent as unpatriotic, unAmerican, as giving comfort to the enemy or whatever. Detention without trial etc, etc on the basis of suspicion and so on. Shades of the Soviet era everyone fought so hard to erase.

  The only ones who can stop this rot are the British and American people voting the hawk politicians out of office but there's not much chance of that. The super efficient mass propaganda machinery has them busy trying to save their butts from the latest "enemy" - terrorism. There's nothing like fear to get you to seek protection from your Big Brother!

  I'd say we're all going to need protection from Big Brother, terrorism or no terrorism. Just don't count on the ICTY as one of the protective institutions.
  
  David
  Australian

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 5:33 am
  Gogol

  They've just resumed broadcasting this minute
  
  David
  Australia

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 6:23 am
  

  Please note that Vojislav Seselj's initial appearance before the ICTY will take place on Wednesday at 13:15. The live Internet coverage of the session will start at 13:15, i.e. without the usual 30 mins delay.

  Wednesday's Milosevic-case session will be cut short by an hour to finish at 12:45 Hague time, 13:15 on Internet.

  http://domovina.xs4all.nl

  
  
  Frank Tiggelaar
  Holland

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 6:56 am
  What do you think? Is Carla going to charge Zora Andrich (Joe Millionaire )? She is Serbian and she made CNN news. I think that should be enough.
  
  Dakic Ana
  Serbia

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 7:12 am
  

  Thank you, David I was just falling asleep when the resumption of the session woke me up. No explanation given about the interruption. No explanation given neither by the ICTY spokesman Frank Tiggelaar who assumes we care following Seselj dealings with his ICTY.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 12:24 pm
  
  Christian cemeteries in Pec

  As more and more myopic western moralist’s - for example Blair, his ministers and even English Bishops - go into overdrive in attempting to justify their impending attack upon Iraq by pointing to their success in Kosovo ponder this example - just one of very many - of how things have ‘improved’ since their illegal attack.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 12:24 pm
  AW

  Good article about Dole, and ditto can be said about Bush1. You're right about Dole and notice his 'core' didn't support him. But who really knows ?

  Republican presidents have never had the 'media' support and Hollywood propaganda egging the country on for them. Nor are they 'dogwaggers', diversion seekers, or 'feel good' doers.

  Notice how easy it was for Clinton to get congressional support in 98 to attack Iraq, without getting UN approval. Now W is having a very difficult time getting that same support for taking on Iraq.

  There's more balance with Republicans in power than Democrats , and I have more confidence in the Republicans than the Democrats.
  
  J P
  US,Wis

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 12:26 pm
  If you watch the US propaganda about the pusillanimous Europeans you may notice the same thing as you saw in the WSJ article about the Saddam tribunal on February 12: no mention is made of the ICC. If you brought the ICC into the picture, you might get a better idea of why the Europeans are not so eager to attack a country for no reason other than the US hunch that weapons of mass destruction might be involved. If the US thinks an ICC indictment should be a trifle for the Europeans, I think it is no use waiting for the Americans to come to their senses on their own: one should issue an ICTY indictment instead and see how they react.

  In fact, I think much of this American hysteria is about the fear of a war crimes indictment. When Milosevic was indicted, it was suggested that now the Serbs might fight to the last man. Now the Americans fight to the last man (not theirs), even before an indictment has been issued.

  It is funny how much things can change in a year. About a year ago, the Jewish leaders tried to gain some sympathy by emphasizing that anti-Israel opinions are not anti-Semitism. Then, slowly, things started changing. The same people started accusing the critics of Israel for hiding their anti-Semitism behind anti-Israel opinions.

  To appreciate how far things have come, you only need to read Monday's JWR: the Europeans are accused of judenrein policies. For what? Answer: they oppose the attack on Iraq. So now it isn't even necessary to oppose Israel to be an anti-Semite. One only has to oppose the attack on Iraq. Remember, the official reason for attacking Iraq is that the Americans think Saddam has weapons of mass destruction (and we shouldn't settle for anything else than the official reason). You have to know a whole lot more to make any connection to Israel.

  So the US propaganda operates on this principle: read the ICC out, read the anti-Semitism in.

  Another interesting thing about the JWR article is that the Americans now compare themselves to the Jews to "explain" the European opposition to the American plans (as if it were not bad enough what was said above). Think back. It is interesting to see that the Americans lost their "empire" in three years. In 1999 they were still speaking in the name of the "international community". Now they see themselves as another persecuted people beside the Jews. When you see it in this light, you can appreciate the depth of the American despair at the moment. My dear friends, the war on Iraq is not about anti-Semitism or theocracies (Judeo-Christian or Muslim), it is all about weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam has not been demonstrated to have. This is the official American standpoint, so to read anything more to anything you have to assume your leaders are lying.

  The Americans don't appreciate the European respect for the ICC. They even seem to have forgotten all about it after they "unsign" the Statute. Now they interpret European reluctance as pusillanimity. One can only imagine if someone forced the Americans to play by the same rules as anybody else.

  In an earlier article, the JWR said that the Europeans trust bureacracy (like the UN) more than God. Perhaps making somebody else abide by the same obligations as anybody else would be the greatest sin of all.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 12:40 pm
  David we can discuss “Who Won WWII” until cows come home but to minimize the sacrifices of the British and the American people during WWII is unfair. You dismiss out of hand the survival of Britain as a base for operations against the Nazis, the African Campaign and the sacrifices of the British navy and air force is ingratitude. A British attempt was made to open a second front in 1942 at Dieppe but that failed. Churchill wanted to open a front in the Balkans but Stalin nixed that. Arguments can also be made that if Operation Punishment (the German code name for the Yugoslavian campaign) did not delay German plans for the invasion of Russia the results on the Eastern Front might have been very different since the Germans might have taken Moscow before the winter set in resulting in a German victory in the East.

  It was the Serbs that refused to knuckle down to Hitler in 1941 and Helmut Kohl remembered his history thus the German recognition of Croatia. How does one forgive the British government for the stab in the back during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia on the anniversary of Operation Punishment? The Serbs came to Britain’s aid in their “darkest hour” while “Bloody Blair” paid Belgrade a visit like the Nazis did in WWII. As for the Chirac gang they are the reincarnation of Vichy France once again riding the German coattails. On the other hand where was Russia “the protector”??

  Yugoslavs can point a finger in every direction and blame others but three fingers keep pointing directly back at the Yugoslavs. We can shout from the highest mountain that it was this or it was that but in the end it was the average man (Serb, Croat, and Muslim) who in the name of McDonaldism, Nikeism, CocaColaism and Beatleism picked up the gun against his neighbor and that was the end of it.

  Milosevic was the only political leader, a pragmatist that wanted to keep the country together against the ‘isams” and that was his crime. Political blunders of the West, both intentional and unintentional, found fertile ground and recrimination. The Serbs found themselves in a situation where they had nothing left to lose because their back was against the wall. The ‘unkindest cut of all’ is the Hague Tribunal, where the victims are on trial for the deeds of the victimizers.

  American National Policy is World Economic Integration and all those that stand in the way will be eliminated via Tribunal or war. Economic Integration means American control. As David said “What we are seeing is the acceleration of globalization (colonialisation) while there is no ideological or military opposition”

  Bob Dole would sell his mother for a dollar. When Dole uses the phrase “move toward a market economy” why does he not use it in reference to the United States? In the Past seventy years it was government investment and Keynesianism that saved America from revolution. Government directed spending accounts for over forty percent of the American annual budget. Iraq is just one part of this economic lie. Yet, with his market economy one in five persons you pass on the street in the state of Oregon is hungry. Bob Dole is a pathological liar.

  Greece and Turkey have made an agreement to construct a gas pipeline to access gas from Central Asia and Russia. When the Greeks and the Turks agree on something there might yet be hope for the Balkan. Jari referring to Turkey as a democracy was a tongue in cheek I hope.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 6:37 pm
  Well they are at it again. The Albanians vow to take Southern Serbia for their own and have it become part of Kosovo and then independence for all the Albanians. Will they be satisfied? Noooooo! Look out Macedonia, Montenegro and Greece.

  The following is from an AP article:

  Many analysts believe the militants may take advantage of the world's preoccupation with the crisis in Iraq to relaunch a rebellion in southern Serbia.

  The article states the Albanians vow to fight until the end. Let me see, didn‘t they call in the U.S. to fight for them the last time? Isn‘t it strange how these people get their stories mixed up.

  Massacre warning: In the States we have tornado warnings. You Serbs should look out for grave digging.

  Meantime the International community is too busy bartering for their goodies from the US in exchange for their signature on a “bomb Iraq now agreement,” to bother with this group of terrorists. As an extra here......Serbian Unity Congress has been hacked. This happens once in awhile when someone gets irritated and we know who it is.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 7:29 pm
  Vera can you tell me if Wm Walker the "discoverer" of the Racak massacre (& named in the Irangate hearings as an experienced black-ops operative) was ever called to give evidence. Racak, if not a CIA/KLA black-op should have been the most important charge against Milosevic & Walker the prime witness?
  
  Neil Craig
  UK

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 8:32 pm
  

  Neil,

  William Walker, ambassador Walker gave evidence 11-12 June last year. You will find these dates of the transcripts HERE

  Read and judge by yourself . . .
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 8:32 pm
  To: Neil Craig

  Vera will surely have valuable insight, but, in a brief answer to your question, W. Walker testified on June 11 & 12, 2002 (click the dates from transcripts). For a brief (and not visibly anti-Milosevic) news piece you can check this AP report on cross-examination of Walker. We will hear more on Racak when the Finnish forensic expert H. Ranta testifies in March. A critical finding of the Finnish team was that, in sharp contrast to allegations by Walker, Clinton etc, only 1 of 40 examined bodies was shot at close range.
  
  Pythagoras C
  Greece

• Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 8:39 pm
  Ranta is scheduled, of all goes well, for 12 March.
  
  G C
  USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 3:06 am
  While on the subject of American despair, let us put the emphasis on the New Europe, i.e. countries like Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, in perspective. I think it irresponsible, and indicative of their despair, that the Americans use these countries to get even with Chirac. Yes, Chirac was out of line to draw the EU accession trump card, but that is the name of the game in the EU. The EU is still basically an economic organization, and the accession of these relatively poor countries is an economic risk. What Chirac was doing was not worse than the British threat to block the Yugoslav membership in the OSCE. I didn't hear anybody calling Blair a "thug" for that.

  This New Europe will be new for a while: until the US gets its will. The reason the New Europe countries are turning to the US is that they are hoping that the US would provide a quick fix to their problems. On the other hand, if the American campaign in Iraq goes sour, it is these over-eager countries that will pay the price, insofar as they have anything left to lose.

  JP said that he trusts the Republicans more than the Democrats. This must have been an answer to the criticism that we don't know why we should trust Bush. The modesty of the Republican propaganda compared to the Democratic propaganda was cited as a reason.

  This may be true, but you still have to be an American to say that. It is true that the propaganda has been scaled down to a level that a sane person can still cope with, especially after one has been hardened by the Clinton propaganda. Neither is there is any doubt that Bush puts the American interests first. But that is just the problem. In foreign policy he is a wildcard, and insofar as he wants to make his foreign policy compatible with a possible later Democrat administration, it would be crazy for anybody to trust him based on good intentions alone.

  I think the idea is that Bush's plan is to root out Islamist fundamentalism, but he goes on talking about the religion of peace, so he can fool the surrounding Arab states. Instead, he talks about the weapons of mass destruction. However, it is doubtful whether the Arab states believe Bush any more than anybody else. On the other hand, if it is his intention to deceive, how can we be sure who he is deceiving?

  I think Bush is right in saying that terrorism is a worldwide threat, especially if he means the Islamist terrorism. He has his critics. Those who don't believe him want to use the US support for the Afghanistan extremists against the Soviet Union as proof that the US can keep the lid on terrorism easily. However, the moral of the Afghanistan example is that Islamist fundamentalism was a powerful force against the Soviet Union, and indeed it is the Soviet experiences in Afghanistan that have usually been used to explain why the Soviet Union collapsed. If the Islamist fundamentalism can bring down the Soviet Union, it can bring down the US. I think nobody appreciates the risk so well as the US.

  However, none of this means that one should trust Bush. It may not be his fault. It may be Clinton's fault. But when you are outside the US, the American foreign policy has started to seem absolutely unpredictable and erratic.

  Those who are making a noise about the Kosovo bombing and the ensuing Milosevic "trial", like us, are more articulate than most in expressing their criticisms, but I think the majority would still share them, no matter in how vague terms. So I guess we are worth listening.

  Walter's latest post showed that one should speak of WW II only tongue in cheek. Comparing Chirac to the Vichy regime seems like calling Vergès a fascist and Milosevic a Nazi. Those who defend the Serbs just because they are Serbs would still have the same kind of hate campaign mounted against the French, given half the chance. In this perspective, I wonder how much "hope" there is for the Balkans.

  Besides, if there is hope, it is easy to speak of hope when you have lost everything. Now we are told that the US has hinted that the Serb forces might return to Kosovo. Do we really need to comment on that? First, this is just the same kind of low-profile move as the US decision to free aid to Serbia, only to withdraw it later. Besides, now that the US has broken down Yugoslavia into Serbia and Montenegro, I think any talk of Serb forces returning to Kosovo is adding insult to injury.

  The only way to restore confidence in the US is to court martial Wesley Clark and the whole joint criminal enterprise. This is not going to be easy, but it cannot be too much to ask that the US military starts using the code on war crimes that it has.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 4:12 am
  Jari,

  The only reason why Djindjic is making this noise over Kosovo and talking about greater integration between Republika Srpska and Serbia-proper is because the economy in Serbia keeps on getting worse and worse. Wages dropped by 18% in January alone, and in some parts of Serbia the unemployed are now outnumbering the employed.

  Djindjic never cared about Kosovo before. He was perfectly happy to sit in Germany and cheerlead for NATO while it was bombing Serbia.

  Obviously, Djindjic is just trying to exploit this emotional issue in order to distract people from the various other problems that him and his handlers have caused for Serbia.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 5:37 am
  

  The presidency of George Bush, appointed by a 5 to 4 vote decision of the US Supreme Court has been so far of such a radical nature that I don't think there is much to compare it to, whether democrat or republican.

  It is my hope Turkey, of all countries, will reject the American demands to launch a 62,000 US strong army attack on Iraq from Turkey. I think it is this essential military fact which is withholding the US invasion of Iraq and that the United Nations "debates" are just very secondary and counter productive to the US. Holbrooke in an editorial on the Washington Post called on the US administration to bypass the UN and do as they did in 1999 to launch NATO into war against Yugoslavia. Ricky Holbrooke forgets that even NATO is divided this time on the issue, division directly traceable to the new ways of conducting business in Washington.

  Sometimes history does not repeat itself, it just gets worse.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 5:41 am
  

  Turkey, I forgot to mention has also aspirations to the Euroepan Union.
  
  G C
  USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 9:47 am
  
  Any excuse …

  As warmonger Blair wriggles to excuse his actions over Iraq his crimes in Kosovo come back to haunt him. The ‘smart’ ex-lawyer, wannabe pop idol, feigning moral outrage, persuasively trots out excuse after excuse each one demolished by the facts:

  First it was Hussein’s link to al-Qaeda: No credible link has been established but there is massive evidence that Blair and his cronies supported Islamic terror including al-Qaeda in the Balkans - and still do in the sense that they continue to allow Islamic terror to rampage over minority rights there. Milosevic was never linked to al-Qaeda but Blair tortures him at his ICTY for all the continuing evil wrought in Kosovo: simply because of Serb attempts to protect themselves and combat these dark Islamic forces.

  Second it was Hussein’s possession of WMD’s which might fall into the hands of Islamic terrorists: As the British government threatens to nuke Iraq “in the right circumstances” so far no evidence of any significant WMD’s have been found in Iraq whereas other sources such as North Korea, Britain and the US actually trade such weapons or their delivery systems!

  Third it was that ‘Hussein is an evil man’ who caused a million deaths in his war against Iran and thus our moral duty to remove him. Who was it that armed and supported him in his attack upon Iran: remember Bull’s super-gun manufactured in the UK? Who was it that interfered in Yugoslavia, supporting Islamic terror as wrought by example by the KLA, causing tens of thousands of deaths?

  Fourth it is our moral duty to change Iraq’s evil regime: Kosovo has an evil regime installed by Blair and his cronies with the aid of >a href = "http://www.balkanpeace.org/library/gallery/nis/"> cluster bombs, an evil weapon: The torture and murder of some 3,000 of the minority populations and loyal Kosovars and the ethnic cleansing or internal displacement of hundreds of thousands …

  As the Anglo/US alliance sells out the Iraqi Kurds to the Turks and warmonger Blair - given his marching orders by Dubya - tries to con New Labour members into believing that the impending inevitable Bush war is not inevitable: Blair raises his fifth excuse for war: ‘To uphold the authority of the UN over Resolution 1441’.

  Just three months after resolution 1441 as Blair - working himself into a bogus moral fervour to disguise his promise to Bush that he would provide him with a second supplementary resolution to legitimise his war - tables a new Resolution supplementing 1441 “To uphold the authority of UN Resolutions” let us remind him of his failure to uphold UN Resolution 1244.

  Let us table a supplementary resolution of our own to 1244 ‘To uphold the authority of the UN over Resolution 1244’ a resolution ignored by Blair and his cronies for almost four years:

  The Security Council recalling all its previous relevant resolutions and all the relevant statements of its President:

  Recalling that its resolution 1244, while acknowledging that Nato, being the supreme power in the region, has been and remains in material breach of its obligations, now affords Nato a final opportunity to comply with its obligations in Kosovo.

  Noting its failure to observe resolution 1244, the council warns Nato that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations.

  Noting that Nato has issued many false promises pursuant to its Resolution 1244 and false statements and omissions and has failed to comply with, and co-operate fully in the implementation of that resolution.

  Mindful of its primary responsibility under the charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.

  Recognising the threat of Nato's non-compliance with council resolutions and the proliferation of terrorists and their weapons and the threat which this poses to international peace and security.

  Determined to Secure full compliance with its decisions and to restore international peace and security in the area, decides that Nato has failed to take the opportunity afforded to it to observe Resolution 1244.

  UN Resolution 1244

  While the arrogant US FBI kicks the British in the teeth by causing the imprisonment of an elderly innocent Englishman for three weeks during which time he was robbed, threatened and at risk of HIV through rape: Blair enables a Bush war on Iraq as he enabled a Clinton war on Serbia. There is no greater danger to world peace than Blair’s bogus but persuasive portrayal of sincerity and morality allied to US military power.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 10:16 am
  I compare Chirac only to Vichy politics to make a point about the British-French off and on love affair. Franc’s desire to dominate European politics by keeping Britain out continues as France waltzes one day with Fritz and the next day with Ivan. The French German political union is the only way for France to minimize British influence on the continent. To keep the Germans in their place France and the world just remind them (Germans) of the sins of their fathers. There is evidence for this when we look at history of Franc’s relationship to NATO, Nuclear Arms Treaties and even the ECM.

  The man who is given very little credit in bringing down the Evil Empire is Carter’s golden haired Prussian, Zbigniew Brzezinski http://www.nonviolence.org/commentary/104.php . Next to his countryman in the Vatican who was using “brimstone and fire” it was the ‘beady eyed’ Zbig who gave the Ivans their Vietnam. As the Russians marched into the Afghan net, spun by the ‘demonic’ Zbig the CIA trained Mujahadeen did the rest. As Jari writes “it is the Soviet experiences in Afghanistan that have usually been used to explain why the Soviet Union collapsed.” I would think, in part, rightly so. Tongue in cheek about the 'beady eyes’.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 10:43 am
  JN

  Bingo for you. I might add to your masterful 'forest' analysis that we get Gen. Clark in the hot seat and let Milosevic at him. Then 'court' martial him, but that will never happen if he gets the Democratic nomination.
  
  J P
  US. Wis

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 11:47 am
  Reuters is reporting the Kosovo Serbs have formed their own government in Mitrovica

  Excerpts:

  About 300 delegates at an assembly in the Serb-dominated north of the flashpoint town of Mitrovica elected a president and a 15-member executive board and adopted a declaration that included establishing a Kosovo Serb entity.

  "The Serb entity would...function as an integral part of Serbia," the declaration said, calling for the return of some Serbian army and police forces to help secure Serb-dominated areas and fight organized crime and "terrorism."

  The declaration set out a series of demands to improve the minority's situation and create conditions for Serb refugees to return to the province..

  End of Excerpts

  Albanians angered by this new government and we must not anger the Albanians.

  Holbrooke is much like Lieberman....when there is an opportunity to get in front of the camera he will grab it. While advising the Bushies to go ahead without the SC all he really wants is attention for himself. I hope Milosevic calls him as a witness and asks this great diplomat why he calls Serbs “assholes” and if his vocabulary is so limited that he has to degrade himself.

  If Djindjic cheered the bombing of his own people while sitting in Germany he should not be Prime Minister he should be hung. This is what we call a traitor.....a man without a country.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 12:12 pm
  

  I strongly disagree with posters that think that the man behind the demise of the First Evil Empire USSSR) is Carter’s golden haired Prussian, Zbigniew Brzezinski. I think that main stream media and politicians in the USA are starting to overstate his role now, just to prove that the policies to support Osama Bin Laden were beneficial, rather then devastating. My opinion is that these policies were devastating and that Mr. Zbig and other "inventors" of these policies should be tried for implementing and enforcing them.

  I share opinion of the people that think that main reason for the downfall of the USSSR was failure to follow the world in developing and implementing modern technologies and especially integrated circuits and microprocessors.

  It may look unrelated but the USA was able to land the first space craft on the Moon just because they were capable to develop technology of the integrated circuits in the short period of time. The USA rush to the Moon was not a loss of money, quite to the contrary. It speeded development and introduction of the integrated circuit technology for at least five to ten year. The reason was that the NASA had to have three low power, lightweight computers on the Lunar module to enable it to land and return from the Moon. At that time they become the technological supper power of the world.

  At the time of the first Lunar module landing the 4 bit microprocessors were made available to the industry. In the next 5 years 8 bit ones were made and so on and on. Mr. Ronald Reagan recognized the importance of not allowing the USSSR to share in this technology and imposed so called COCOM agreement upon all the users of the USA developed technologies. They were band to re-sell it as components or systems to the USSSR. Yugoslav companies were punished several limes for not adhering to it.

  To learn more on Mr. Ronald Reagan's policies go to the URL:

  http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/1777/poly/rrcoldwr.html

  In order to win a war against Islamist fundamentalism we need technology of alternative sources of energy, so that we can become independent of oil producing nations. This will allow us to bring back home our military personnel and people working in the oil producing industries form these countries and leave them alone to enjoy the form of government that they like the best. For the USA the best alternative energy technology is Thermo-Solar Power Generation. It is clean. It is cheep. Technology is available now. The USA has enough deserts in the South with almost guaranteed sunny days through out the year. The only problem is that there is no political will to push this alternative through and build new power generating stations.

  Why Mr. Bush prefers the fuel cell technology? Simply because it still uses fossil fuels as a primary source of energy. Its advantages over classic fossil fuel technologies are that it is more efficient and cleaner. The disadvantage is that currently it is ten times more expensive that the classic one and ten years away from what we need now and it requires fossil fuels provided by Bushes and CO.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 1:00 pm
  Walter, France may use Germany to diminish the role of the Brits. Likewise, the US is using the Brits to diminish the role of the EU altogether.

  But I think in Chirac's case there is more involved. Ahtisaari recounts his encounter with Chirac before his mission to Belgrade. The meeting seems quite out of place in Ahtisaari's memoirs, and I guess no-one really knows why Chirac insisted on seeing Ahtisaari. But now I think that he had a very human reason: he was just sick to his stomach of the bombing. But maybe my aversion to the theory about the French killing thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica colours my judgment. Chirac is a crook, everybody knows that, but I think he is more in the French "gentleman thief" tradition. I can't see him as a killer.

  But whatever Chirac is, he is against the attack on Iraq. If this were a perfect world, Chirac would now protest against the attack and he would never have taken part in the Kosovo bombing. Now we got a compromise.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 1:25 pm
  The fall of SSSR was simply caused by ideology, and their perception of the market. While SSSR perceived market as place where people and nations were exploited; US used market to exploit.

  One can argue that SSSR government did not follow Marxist ideology, in the internationalism and was using market to exploit others too - but that would not hold water since SSSR practiced to the end planned economy and “kliring” market.

  While SSSR was trying to build partnership in the international relations, US were seeking domination. Even if the SSSR government had not follow accepted ideology in practice in international relations they did not have their own public support for it, since population was educated differently, and was looking for a cooperativeness in the international relations, as oppose to conflict.

  In these circumstances it was easy to adopt Zbig’s suggestions, since the foundation for aggressive steps and antagonistic relations already existed in US. These antagonistic relations irrevocably lead to conflict. It were Japanese, Germans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Latin Americans, Russians then they started to chase one man: Saddam, Milosevic, Bin Laden, Sadam again... It’s just a matter of time when after Iraq; they will chase, perhaps Sadam in Iran then France…
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 3:50 pm
  

  Socialism or Barbarism

  Rosa Luxembourg
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 4:05 pm
  

  Tribunal launches a probe into Vasiljkovic?s claims

  THE HAGUE -- Wednesday -- The Hague Tribunal has launched an investigation into the statements issued by prosecution witness Dragan Vasiljkovic upon his return from The Hague.

  Vasiljkovic, also known as Captain Dragan, testified last week at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

  Prosecutor Jeffrey Nice said today that the Tribunal Prosecution no longer wishes to cooperate with Vasiljkovic.

  Vasiljkovic has accused the Prosecution of protecting war criminals and complained that the Tribunal has not paid for his traveling expenses.

  Head of the Tribunal?s Public information services Christian Chartier told press today that Vasiljkovic?s stay at The Hague cost a total of3.440 dollars, of which 1,150 dollars had been personally given to Vasiljkovic for his expenses.

  
  
  G C
  USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 4:35 pm
  Good for Captain Dragan.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 4:44 pm
  Pera Bora, why doesn't the US build a few hundred solar chimneys in the large desert areas it has. They are going to build the first solar chimney in Australia now. Prof. Schlaich from my University is involved in this project and I have heard some very exciting lectures about this technology. Here's a thread about it, if you might find interesting:

  Australia plans world's tallest tower

  at

  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/837532/posts
  
  Aleks Stajic
  Germany

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 4:45 pm
  

  If America liberated Europe so that she be an obedient servant, it seems to me there was just a change of boss.

  
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 8:01 pm
  NATO joins chorus of Hague threats to Belgrade

  BRUSSELS -- Wednesday - Serbia-Montenegro must improve its cooperation with the Hague Tribunal before joining the Partnership for Peace, NATO ambassadors in Brussels today told Federal Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic and Deputy Serbian Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic. B92

  Only copied the first paragraph.

  I thought this was quite funny (peculiar or Ha! Ha! take your pick) as what is the Partnership for Peace? Gore Vidal (sp?) calls to our attention that for the last fifty years the United States has been bombing some country or another.Korea, Vietnam,Cambodia,Granada, Libya, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq ( US and Britain bombing Iraq for the past ten years) Serbia and soon Iraq again.I might have missed a few.

  The only reason Nato did not go after the Soviet Union...Nukes.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 8:03 pm
  Thanks Pythagoras. Apparently all Walker says he saw was 2 dozen bodies shot in the "front back & top of the head" & even so he had to say he "didn't remember" doing things other witnesses said he did several times. That he wasn't in the CIA & that Albright didn't appoint him.
  
  Neil Craig
  UK

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 8:33 pm
  

  Seselj is truly a character, he told the judge, a German judge he feels the black robes the judges, the prosecutors, the bailiff each with different colors under-the-chin spread ties, I don't know what they are called, he said all these garments reminded him of the Spanish Inquisition, in contrast with the custom in his country where in court every one dresses in plain clothes.

  He also said wearing a 20 kg flak jacket to come to court was a form of torture, that he had because of the weight entered the car taking him to court on all fours, asked the court to provide an armor car instead of armoring him, but that in any case he did not feel he had to be protected this way since he is under no danger of any kind.

  He told the judge he could not completely understand the indictment which he had read to him in its totally since he had all the time in the world and couldn't understand the hurry of the court. Apparently the court translator used some Croatian words instead of Serbian ones and Seselj is at a loss in Croatian.

  Mr. Milosevic trial was cut short to accommodate Seselj's, I suppose it is too much to bear, to have two Serbian leaders at the same time. The independent media should considerer a second TV channel to carry Seselj's trial. This channel could be called, let me see, I got it: Court TV !
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Wednesday February 26, 2003 at 9:58 pm
  

  Aleks thanks very much for the link. This is good news. I am very much interested in the solar chimney technology, as well as other alternative sources of energy. Solar chimneys are just a variant of Thermo-Solar power generation technologies and they are still in the experimental phase. Other technologies in this area are mature and ready to use. The power chimney technology is not that new, as one may think. I have heard of the concept for the first time 20 years ago in Serbia, when an electrical engineer has patented a method to convert old abandoned factory chimneys into electric power generating facilities. Nobody tried to implement the technology there. They do not have that many sunny days there.

  I like the new Termo-Solar technology described at the URL:

  http://www.solarenergylimited.com/
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 12:49 am
  Pera you may disagree on the role of Mr. Zbig in the downfall of the “Evil Empire” but Afghanistan was the nail in the coffin of the noble experiment. We have had several centuries of conditioning telling us that private interest is more important than public interest when in fact they are one and the same. Private interest in the West has the protection in law and as a result we are provided with pop culture which stimulates the libido and not the brain. The Russians opted out for the pop culture which the ‘basket case’ economy could not provide, particularly with the huge expenditures on the Afghanistan war.

  I was in USSR in 1980 where I met some students from Yugoslavia. While sitting in hotel Cosmos in Moscow I overheard a young lady from Zagreb speaking in Srbo-Croat telling a young man from Montenegro about visiting his family in “Titograd”. I of course joined them and had a very interesting and profitable evening. First of all they changed my dollars to rubbles at 1 to 5 and at the same time informed me about life in Moscow. First of all they told me that they made all their spending money from selling wash and wear shirts that their parents sent to them from Yugoslavia. Secondly, they said that there was very little they could purchase with the money they made from these transactions. For most Russians and these Yugoslavs who represented the ‘new man’ they valued their private wants and needs more than the public interest just like I did with the 1 to 5 exchange rather than the official 1.5 to 1 exchange. Somewhere along the way the system in USSR and here has failed to redefine the public interest so that it can fit into the 21st century. This failure to redefine in law the public interest brought down the Soviet system and it will bring down the capitalist system as well unless public interest is given equal weight in law with private interest.

  Certainly, Pera the inability of the Soviets to compete in robotics was only one problem. Their economy was chugging along on the 1930 five year plan technology just like the softwood industry is doing in BC today. Cheap natural resources (lumber in BC and gas and oil in USSR) paid the bills but as these resources become more expensive to extract other sources of revenue must be found. We in BC must modernize in order to compete and the same is true of Russia,

  Pero you write that “While SSSR was trying to build partnership in the international relations, US were seeking domination.” I think China and particularly Zhou en Lai would disagree. Also I think Czechoslovakia and Hungary would disagree with your view of Russian partnership building. Even closer to home Tito broke with Stalin in 1948 because he did not wish to become subservient to Russian expansion to the Adriatic. I stand to be corrected.

  Yes Gogol we must redefine public interest from its 19th and 20th century definition. The new definition must fit the 21st century so that universal values predominate over national interests.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 3:09 am
  OK, let us list the causes that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here are some suggestions that I have seen: Internet, Chernobyl disaster, Afghanistan. We can discuss the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I wish to point out that I am not in the least nostalgic for the Soviet Union. I picked the Afghanistan war only to make a point. The discussion had veered towards terrorism, so it is only natural to discuss the misconceptions about Osama's role in Afghanistan. What I was going to highlight next in the Afghanistan disaster was its PR component. Osama may have nurtured Islamist extremism in the Soviet Union, but I think the Soviet Union could have coped with this just the way China is coping now in Sinkiang.

  But the PR disaster was enormous. Whether the Soviet Union wanted to advance cooperation and blah-blah-blah (and don't tell me that "cooperation" didn't mean domination - the term Finlandization wasn't coined for nothing!), the protracted war in Afghanistan maked the Soviet Union look very bad to the majority of states it had managed to build over the years in the Union Nations. This meant that it became impossible for the Soviet Union to sell its cooperation and security agenda - or the propaganda of the tremendous advances it had made in whatever front: human rights or technology. The Chernobyl disaster was the nail in the coffin in the technology front.

  And what I would suggest to the US is to avoid this kind of PR disaster that is now confronting. The American war on terrorism is just the kind of aimless shooting at an invisible enemy that the Soviet Union was having in Afghanistan. The difference is that the Soviet Union had to go through years of war, whereas the US has lost most of its support even before the war has started.

  Then I would like to straighten out one misconception about the EU. Nobody despises the EU so much as the statistical European citizen. The EU is a joke. The Treaties promise this or that freedom, but what we see is an explosion in legislation, supposedly meant to ensure these freedoms. I think other European citizens have as much fun as I do seeing the Americans get so worked up about the EU. The Americans like to point out that the EU officials are incompetent, the EU budget is bloated etc. etc. Of course they are! Why get so worked up? And I think it is here that the European solidarity becomes reality: the EU is an inside joke of the European citizens, and the outsiders have a hard time to get the joke. I think what we are seeing now is the strengthening of the European ties through our unique sense of self-deprecation, nurtured by the American overreaction to the statements made by Chirac, among others. That is no negligeable accomplishment.

  More in particular, it is unfair to compare the cooperation between the Germans and the French to Nazi Europe. Indeed, one has to see this coooperation in the context of the EU. The whole point of the European integration was to eliminate the possibility of war between France and Germany through economic cooperation. And I think peace is one of the few areas where the European integration has been a success. The possibility of war inside the European community is very small (although perhaps at the cost of increasing it on its borders).

  By the way, what the founding fathers didn't take into account was the later British accession to the European community. De Gaulle tried to keep the British out, and as we now see, for a good reason.

  But what I would like people to understand is that is quite anachronistic to see the foreign policy of modern Germany in light of Nazi Germany. I would prefer people stop making the WWII allusions altogether, because by making them they only trivialize their own successes, but at least in regard to modern Germany such war talk is only bound to destroy the peace that it has taken more than half a century to build. The US may try provoking the German-French axis for their own short-term interests, but by so doing, they are only opening a Pandora's box.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 4:09 am
  Jari, what is your oppinion about Germany's role in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the wars of secession that followed, especially Kosovo?
  
  Aleks Stajic
  Germany

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 4:30 am
  

  I have little to add to Jari's comments about the EU, except that I think the world has not quite realized what the vanishing of the USSR really means.

  Further, the only one reason why the Union was destroyed has to do with treason , democratically speaking and so they spoke, the peoples of the Soviet Union or at least 75% of them choose to keep the Union.

  But, is it not the role of the politician to persuade, in their name, the people to do what they don't want to do, what it is not in their interest?

  Replacing international values for national ones seems to me like attempting to extend to people and nations the unproven technologies of genetically altered foods.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 4:33 am
  It seems the Milosevic trial has been quite uneventful this week. But uneventfulness can be a sign too.

  The Advocates for Kosova Independence sent an email yesterday complaining that the Iraqi war is going to take the attention away from Kosova. In this connection such alarming developments as the possible partition of Kosova were mentioned. This was very diplomatic of the writer. What I think she wanted to say is that the US shouldn't calm down the situation in Kosova, to get all clear for the campaign in Iraq, by taking steps that would be detrimental to the development towards the eventual independence of Kosova. What she was saying, in other words, was that some alarming developments had been taking place in Kosovo, but they could only be attributed to the American oversight instead of American design.

  I think the US is indeed taking steps - by design- to calm down the situation in Serbia. And it is doing so by giving the Serbs some token handouts, so they would keep quite after all that the US has done to them. The Albanians are planning the takeover of Southern Serbia, and the US won't have the possibility or the interest to look after them any more. Instead the US may be empowering the Serbs to take care of the situation.

  There are steps taken in the ICTY too. May isn't the same fart as he has been before. Some KLA members were also taken to The Hague, maybe to give publicity to the KLA detainees in Kosovo itself.

  Similarly, Ms Rice and Mr Powell have been referring to the Kosovo success, and in contrast to Blair, who will call anything a success if he can save his own ass, Mr Powell may be selling the Kosovo success story short by calling it a success first and making it a success afterwards. I still think he is a man of honour, and when he has to lie to stay true to his position, one can sense how difficult it is for him.

  The US now has a good reason to keep the Serbs happy. The "New Europe" borders on Serbia, and it would be embarrassing to let a cauldron of discontent stay in the middle of the New Europe. It can't look after the Albanians for ever, so maybe it now realizes that the Serbs weren't so bad after all.

  But I think the Americans should get serious this time. Anyone can see that such half-hearted measures are only a band-aid to address the American problems. They will be abandoned when the Americans have got what they wanted. Empowering the Serbs in their own country after it has been torn apart is not going to solve anything.

  So if and when the Americans start shouldering their responsibility, they should consider court-martialling the Kosovo bombers. Judging by JP's comments, such a step would be something the Americans could still accept (although I now understand why JP uses initials). Indeed, such trials would preserve the dignity of the accused a lot better than the ICTY. Clark would still be called General, which is more than we can say of President Milosevic, who is simply known as the "accused".

  I didn't know Clark was a political candidate. Again judging by what JP said, once Clark turns political, he is out of reach. This would suggest that all the American politicians are out of reach.

  But never mind. Court-martial would be a big step forward, and if we lose Clark, there are still plenty of war criminals to go around. Besides, the political characters could still be implicated in the trial. Anyway, a court-martial would take the war crimes prosecutions back to where they started, without the kind of unnecessary Carla opera that we are seeing in the Milosevic trial, and the basic legal issues would be addressed quite adequately.

  When one puts the suggestion so bluntly, the question becomes: why are the Americans so reluctant to court-martial these people? Normally, the war crimes cases are shelved because they would be harmful to the national interests. However, one shouldn't keep parrotting this "wisdom", when the national interest is screaming for court-martial, as it is now.

  There must also be a more military-technical reason. The Nato war crimes were committed by using air power. The exclusive use of these bombardments was a big step at the time, because nobody would have expected that a country could be beaten with ground troops. Indeed, Afghanistan was another success story, from a purely military point of view, and I don't think the Americans necessarily think further than that.

  However, the exclusive use of air power was a success only if you leave the "collateral damage" out of the picture. The US would rather forget about this downside altogether, because it is laying down glorious plans for the conquest of the world on the assumption that air power is all you need.

  And this, folks, is where the Americans are lying to themselves. Even if we would accept that the "collateral damage" was indeed "collateral", the campaign was grossly negligent, which does not take away the responsibility of the planners. But it is more probable, indeed almost certain, that the planners were deliberately using the "collateral damage" as a cover for causing some intentional damage to the civilians.

  And there is no doubt that the bombing campaign entered the realm of war crimes. Even the US-friendly Human Rights Watch accused the military of causing 500 deaths that it could have avoided. To be more specific, the RTS bombing was a crime. You don't have to take the word of the human rights organizations for that. If the RTS boss (forgetting his name all the time) could be sentenced for 10 years for letting the people stay in the building, it is a much worse crime to bomb the building. Was the US hoping nobody would notice this judicial trick? Also, China demanded an investigation of the Embassy bombing and a "severe punishment" for the perpetrators, but nothing happened beyond courtesy.

  So I don't know how on earth the US can keep fooling itself that these points can be addressed by bringing the Serb troops to Kosovo, or playing games with the financial aid. In defining its national interest it should take into account that the rest of the world is crying for justice. If the US doesn't trust the international tribunals, it should at least trust its own tribunals. If it doesn't, where is the point?
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 5:00 am
  Aleks, the German foreign policy in Croatia can be seen independently from any Nazi agenda. I think the German role has often been overstated. What Germany did, it did it for Austria, which joined the EU in 1995.

  For any historical precursors, I think we would have to go back to WW I, instead of WW II. Remember, archduke Otto von Hapsburg, a very important figure in European integration (I think now a member of the European Parliament), was about two years old at the time Gavrilo Princip shot one of his family in Sarajevo.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 5:10 am
  

  The trial has heard, so far this week, a British journalist, quite hostile to Mr. Milosevic, an ambassador professor in international law at Yale University, here in Connecticut whom by the way was not cross examined by Mr. Milosevic because he had to "deliver a lecture" (Such nice excuses will not matter in most judicial systems of the world) and today an Irish Lt. General who was in a EC Monitoring Mission of two days in october 1991 in Dubrovnik.

  I guess the time for the insiders is over.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 5:20 am
  

  Stressing the point, the point being the prosecution has serious problems finding suitable witnesses, Mr. Milosevic told the court this morning he has not received the list of the incoming witnesses, he does not know who the next witness is, this as he said "is not an administrative matter, but a very basic issue"
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 5:40 am
  You are right, there's not necessarily a Nazi agenda behind Germany's geostrategic and poltical-historical goals in the former Yugoslavia. Where I disagree is that the German role has been overstated. It is even understated, but that's a long story and maybe some historians will write books about it in a few decades. Amazingly , a german judge presides the Seslj trial, we have a german Gauleiter in Kosovo and not too long ago a Britt replaced the austrian Gauleiter in Bosnia.

  A very good reading about Germany's role before and during the Kosovo war:

  Matthias Küntzel

  Germany an the Kosovo

  How Germany's independent line paved the way to the Kosovo War

  Contribution to the 2nd International Hearing of the European Tribunal concerning Nato's war against Yugoslavia. Hamburg, April 16, 2000 (1)

  In 1991, a delegation of the German Bundestag visited Kosovo for the first time in order to talk with Kosovo Albanian nationalist leaders. This prompted - as early as 1991! - the warning by a senior member of the Yugoslavian parliament that "the British and the Germans would create a common intervention force with 70,000 soldiers in order to intervene in Kosovo." (2) Indeed an early and accurate prophecy! So what about Germany's role in preparing for the Kosovo war?

  There were and there are strategic differences between German and the US policies about how to retain or enhance hegemony. "As a wealthy status quo power, the United States has an interest in maintaining international order", wrote Joseph S. Nye, Jr, a former US deputy secretary of defense. "In a world where there are some two hundred states but many thousands of often overlapping entities that might eventually make a claim to nationhood, blind promotion of self-determination would have highly problematic consequences." (3) Berlin, however, in seeking to create conditions for an ongoing expansion of German influnce (that means: changing the international order) does not share this priority. As Rupert Scholz, the former German secretary of defense, explained: "The aim of maintaining "stability" in Europe seems to be a most dangerous one. There will not be any real stablity, which is able to maintain peace, if individual nations are held prisoner in unwanted and unnatural ("unnatürliche") state organizations, which have been imposed upon them." Since 1990, German foreign policy has "constantly persisted in activly advocating a universal right of self-determination." (4)

  This policy has a particular bearing on Kosovo. The hidden war about Kosovo's future started in 1995 at the latest. In February 1995 in the presence of Roman Herzog, Germany's President at that time, Germany and Albania signed a common declaration of principle at Tirana. This declaration is rarely mentioned in the literature but nevertheless decisive because it promised to find a "solution to the Kosovo question" by advocating the right of self-determination for Kosovo's Albanians. (5) Advocating self-determination for Kosovo's Albanians, however, meant advocating their right to secede from Yugoslavia. This declaration was in so far a kind of advance notice to continue Germany's 1991 course (recognition of Croatia) in order to further split up Yugoslavia following a racist (völkisch) concept of self-determination.

  In the period following, the German goverment did everything it could to spur on the separation of Albanians within Kosovo. Germany supported and financed those nationalists who sought to pursue the goal of full independence by creating alternative governing institutions as well as independent Albanian educational and medical systems in Kosovo which systematically separated the majority of the people in Kosovo from the other peoples of Yugoslavia. In addition, German secret diplomacy was instrumental in helping the "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA), as they call themselves, since its creation in February 1996. The daily newspaper "The European" stated that "German civil and military intelligence services have been involved in training and equipping the rebels with the aim of cementing German influence in the Balkan area." (6)

  During those years, Germany unilaterally supported the secessionist movements. In 1997 editor Johann Georg Reißmüller of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (a German daily newspaper) wrote: "The US government is not at all happy with Germany's policy in Kosovo". It was, however, exactly that year - 1997 - that the crisis in Kosovo began to escalate. After the destruction of the Albanian army arsenals the KLA armed itself in order to start a large-scale nationalist rebellion. This development and the following counter-attack by the Serbian police moved Kosovo into the headlines and into the focal point of NATO's considerations. How did Germany and the United States react?

  "The Clinton administration is still uncertain about how to deal with this crisis", later wrote the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. A senior official from the German foreign office was sent to Washington to put pressure on the deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott. "We urgently need U.S. leadership now" claimed Germany's emissary. (7) This pattern: Germany calls for the U.S. government - actually for a special wing of the U.S government - to act against Yugoslavia were repeated between March 1998 and March 1999 over and over again. Let us now take a closer look at that pre-war diplomacy which paved the way to war.

  The US government is responsible for most of the war crimes NATO committed against Yugoslavia. But even in 1998, the Clinton administration - split in several fractions on how to deal with Milosevic and the Kosovo Albanians' nationalism - hesitated, reacting uncertainly on a case-by-case basis, oscillating between supporting the KLA and letting Milosevic have a free hand in smashing them. Germany on the other hand knew what to do and how to act. The grand design of Germany's Kosovo policy had been in effect by March 1998. It was revealed by Germany's informal ambassador to the Balkans, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, who on March 16, 1998 said: "We should try to tell Milosevic the plain truth through pressure and even military interventions that he can retain control over Kosovo as a part of Yugoslavia only if certain fundamentals are met. And if this is not the case, the territory there will have to be transformed into a kind of protectorate until those fundamentals are provided for." (8)

  This idea of pushing the Kosovo's Albanians towards a military confrontation with Milosevic in order to create a Kosovo protectorate from now on became the central point of Germany's Kosovo policy - either by the Kohl/Kinkel CDU government or the Schröder/Fischer SPD-Green coalition. One condition was that international troops be stationed on Kosovo soil. As early as March 1998 Germany accordingly put this matter on the agenda at the London meeting of the international Contact Group on Yugoslavia. (9)

  The other condition was that Nato would have to enter Kosovo against the will of the Yugoslav government. Accordingly, Germany sharpened its tone towards Belgrad. Milosevic became the main target and remained so whatever his policy looked like. But France, the UK, Italy and the dominating voices within the US government still prefered to follow a less confrontational policy. In 1998, The European for example stated that "Washington realised that pushing the Kosovars towards a military confrontation with Milosevic, as the Germans wanted to do, would have a boomerang effect on the Balkans. The United States put maximum pressure on Germany to stop supporting the KLA behind the scenes, as did the other European countries such as Britain and France." (10)

  They termed the KLA activities "terrorist" and supported indirectly a Serbian counteroffensive against the KLA during the summer of 1998 and appealed to Milosevic and the moderate Albanian leader Rugova to begin talks. The KLA, however, succeeded in provoking the Serbian police force and in escalating armed clashes time and again. The policy of de-escalation turned out to be a permanent failure as long as there was a continuity in the supply of KLA weapons and KLA mercenaries across the Albanian border.

  It was therefore not at all surprising that in the summer of 1998 all the efforts of the United Nations and the majority of Nato countries (including the US) concentrated in the goal of cutting off the arms and soldiers supplies in favor of the KLA. The Albanian government headed by Fatos Nano who had disassociated himself from the KLA supported this plan. Inside NATO the idea of sending 7000 soldiers to cut off the traffic in weapons began to take shape.

  During this crucial situation, however, Germany's covering up for the KLA became both public and evident: The German government vetoed the cutting-off of the supply of weapons for the KLA! Klaus Kinkel, then head of the German foreign office said: "Of course you have to consider whether you are permitted from a moral and ethnical point of view to prevent the Kosovo-Albanians from buying weapons for their self-defense." (11) Volker Rühe, then head of the ministry of defense answered to this consideration with an unequivocal No: "You cannot resolve the Kosovo conflict by sending troops to Albania to seal the border and thus be acting in favor of Milosevic." (12)

  Rühe's message was quiete clear: everyone who tries to seal the border in order to find a peaceful solution is taking sides with Milosevic. In order to disassociate yourself from Milosevic you have to escalate the war between the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs by delivering more and more weapons to the KLA! This open German solidarity with the KLA has been as much an isolated provocation as has the recognition of Tudjman's Croatia in 1991, 50 years after the formation of the first Croatian state under the rule of the fascist Ustashi regime.

  Just like 1991 Germany again stood nearly alone against a huge majority of countries in Europe and the world. Just like 1991 Germany again supported a movement with a background rooted in the Nazi past, because the KLA is partly led by the sons and grandsons of extreme right-wing Albanian fighters, the heirs of those who fought during World War II in the fascist militias and the "Skanderbeg Volunteer SS Division" raised by the Nazis. (13) The "National Front of Albania" (Balli Kombetar) which collaborated with Nazi leaders in 1943/44 today boasts about its influence within the KLA which has a program that seems to be a modified version of the 1943 Nazi utopia.

  Thus the program of "ethnic cleansing" which Germany exported into the Balkans in 1941 remained alive within the movement of the Kosovo Albanian nationalists during the 80s. "The nationalists have a two-point platform" wrote the New York Times in 1982: "First to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania." (14) Whenever the KLA talks about "liberation" or "freeing" this has been up to now understood in the Nazi-sense of "free of something" i.e. "free of Jews" ("judenfrei"), "free of Gypsies" or "free of Serbs". Noone could be really surprised when, beginning with June 1999, the de facto rule of the KLA turned out to be a daily and a deadly trap for thousands of non-Albanians, especially defenceless Serbs.

  In the summer of 1998 Germany and the USA took not only opposite but conflicting sides: While the USA - in the words of General Shelton, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - has had "concerns about the techniques that are being used to put down, to squelch the uprising" (15) Germany on the other hand acted as the protective power for the KLA. This confrontation includes a strategic conflict within NATO: Is the Atlantic Alliance supposed to help or to hinder the KLA? Should NATO as the KLA's airforce contribute to the revision of state borders and the further diminishing of Yugoslavia? Or is the alliance bound to clap down on such a type of militant secessionism?

  It was Germany's insistence and the ignorance or thirst for adventure within the leadership of the other NATO powers that brought the world's biggest military alliance eventually in favor of the Albanian nationalists. Germany has "given evidence of its prepareness to lead" praised the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine. (16) Now Germany once again took the lead in pressing for military intervention in Kosovo. The New York Times reported: "German officials seem increasingly inchined towards charting a military course to stop the violence in Kosovo." (17)

  Indeed. "Mr. Kinkel threatens with a Nato intervention in Kosovo" proclaimed the headlines of German papers on June 5, 1998. "The United States, unlike Germany, rejects a snap decision about a military intervention", wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine the following day. Volker Rühe was the first government official in Europe who as early as June 15, 1998 spoke in favor of a strike against Yugoslavia even without a UN Security Council green light. This suggestion played havoc with not only the UN Charter but also with the German constitution and the Treaty of Moscow concerning German unification. This proposal was later taken up positively by the USA. We have to conclude, therefore, that Germany is not only guilty of committing the crimes which are connected with the US-led bombing of Yugoslavia, but is responsible for ardently working towards triggering this war.

  The German concept for Kosovo includes the following: - to make a stand against the Yugoslav government - unlimited support for the Kosovo Albanian nationalists who demand independence and a lasting unification with Albania - to demand for air-strikes against Yugoslavia in order to achieve a NATO protectorate for Kosovo which is supposed to be only an interim step towards the independence of Kosovo. Strategic differences between German and the US policies diminished considerably in 1999 when the Clinton administration decided to go to war in favor of the ultra-secessionist KLA. They seem to gain, however, new weight in the post-war debate about the final status of Kosovo. US Secretary of State Madelaine Albright recently rejected the idea of creating a greater Albania, whereas German policy seems to be pushing in the opposite direction.

  Karl Lamers, the influential CDU foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition in the Bundestag said about the transformation of Kosovo into a NATO protectorate that this is "only the first step towards the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia" and that an independent Kosovo will be "only an interim step to merging ("Anschluss") with Albania." (18) Recently, Lamers mentioned with great satisfaction "that everything we are actually doing in Kosovo, e. g. the creation of a new currency zone, is aimed at creating an independent Kosovo...". (19) Even Germany's red/green coalition government does not want to recognize Kosovo as being a province of Yugoslavia. That is the reason why in his last major statement Joschka Fischer - Germany's vice-chancellor and secretary of state - let the question of "the future status of the Kosovo" open claiming that it would be impossible to resolve this now. In an interview with a French newspaper, however, he made clear that he had no doubts about the Kosovo's future status: "The international community is present in Kosovo and the Balkans in order to show that - according to the example of resolving the 'German question' in 1990 - the 'Albanian question' could be resolved only with the agreement of the neighbouring states." (20)

  US government circles are quite aware of those ambitions of their rival, Germany. Zbigniew Brzezinski called the Berlin republic a "geostrategic main actor" and a "subversive big power inspired by an ambitious vision". Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state, characterized Germany as the seismic focal point of the current geopolitical earthquakes which are disrupting the Atlantic Alliance as well as the Balkans. He emphasized that Germany is "the epicentre of thoses processes - enlargement and expansion, extension and deepening." (21)

  Within the context of the war against Yugoslavia the other great powers, however, not only reacted to aggressive German moves but pursued their own special interests as well. The United States wanted to retain its influence in Europe, to strengthen a worldwide role for NATO and to weaken Russias influence within the new world order. Great Britain und France were eager to demonstrate their military superiority over Germany and wanted to give a starting signal for the establishing of an independent European intervention force (together with Germany) vis-a-vis the USA. Each of these nations is a rival to the others and is trying to retain or achieve as much influence and power as possible. The war against Yugoslavia has been the first, however, to be spurred on by Germany as an attempt to redesign current world order after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has put the irrational elements and the destructive roots of capitalistic societies into a new light.

  (1) This contribution is a short description of a broader study: Matthias Küntzel, Der Weg in den Krieg. Deutschland, die Nato und das Kosovo, Elefanten Press, Berlin 2000. The author´s e-mail address: MatKuentzel@aol.com.

  (2) This warning was published in the Yugoslavian journal Polityka; see the minutes of the Bundestag meeting June 16, 1991, pp. 2560-1.

  (3) Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Redefining the National Interest, Foreign Affairs Vol.78 No.4, July/August 1999 pp. 22-35.

  (4) See Rupert Scholz, Das Festhalten an ungewollten Staaten schafft keine Stabilität, in: Die Welt, December 12, 1991; Rupert Scholz, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht und die deutsche Politik, in: Internationale Politik 4/1995, S.51.

  (5) "Deutschland und Albanien ... bekräftigen das Recht aller Völker, frei und ohne Einmischung von außen ihr Schicksal zu bestimmen und ihre politische, wirtschaftliche, soziale und kulturelle Entwicklung nach eigenem Wunsch zu gestalten." This declaration is published in the Archiv der Gegenwart, March 13, 1995, pp. 39819-20.

  (6) Roger Fallgot, How Germany Backed KLA, in: The European, 21-27 September 1998. See for more details M. Küntzel, Der Weg in den Krieg pp. 59-64.

  (6) Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Redefining the National Interest, Foreign Affairs Vol.78 No.4, July/August 1999 pp. 22-35.

  (7) See Die Zeit, May 12, 1999.

  (8) Christian Schwarz-Schilling, March 16, 1999, Deutschlandradio, quoted in: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, Stichworte zur Sicherheitspolitik, April 1998, p. 47.

  (9) Russia, the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany are members of this informal but influential group.

  (10) Roger Fallgot, ibid.

  (11) Interview with Klaus Kinkel, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 30, 1998.

  (12) Mr. Rühe is quoted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, June 9, 1998.

  (13) See Chris Hedges, Kosovo's Next Masters? in: Foreign Affairs, Vol.78, No.3, May/June 1999, pp.24-42. "Although never much of a fighting force, the Skanderbeg Division took part in the shameful roundup and deportation of the province's few hundred Jews during the Holocaust. ... The decision by KLA commanders to dress their police in black fatigues and order their fighters to salute with a cleched fist to the forehead has led many to worry about these fascist antecedents." (ibid.)

  (14) See Marvine Howe, Exodus of Serbians Stirs Province in Yugoslavia, New York Times July 12, 1982.

  (15) See New York Times, June 16, 1998.

  (16) See Frankfurter Allgemeine, September 26, 1998.

  (17) See New York Times, June 10, 1998.

  (18) See the minutes of the Bundestag parliamentary session of April 15, 1999.

  (19) See the minutes of the Bundestag parliamentary session of April 5, 2000.

  (20) See Le Monde March 25, 2000, emphasis by the author.

  (21) See Frankfurter Allgemeine, February 5, 1999.
  
  Aleks Stajic
  Germany

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 5:53 am
  Fasten your seatbelts and grab the popcorn...Milosevic is upstaged as great comedic lead. Serb in Court in The Hague, Playing to a TV Audience at Home By MARLISE SIMONS ojislav Seselj, one of Serbia's most hard-line and most articulate nationalists, appeared at the United Nations tribunal in The Hague yesterday to answer charges that he ran a band of volunteer fighters that killed and robbed non-Serbs during the Balkan wars of the 1990's. With the abrasive style that first saw him jailed under the Communists in Yugoslavia, Mr. Seselj, who drew thousands of supporters onto the streets of Belgrade before he turned himself in to the tribunal this week, presented himself as a victim, rather than perpetrator, of the wars, and listed several objections. First, he told the judge, "I have been physically tortured and mistreated this morning" because he had been forced to wear a thick 45-pound flak jacket on the way from his cell to court. "I had to crawl into the vehicle," he said. "I consider this to be intolerable." Further, he said, clearly playing to a nationalist audience at home that can follow tribunal proceedings on television, he could not enter a plea of guilty or not guilty because in the Serbian language version of the indictment there were several Croatian words he could not understand. The two languages are considered almost interchangeable, but Croats made a conscious attempt to alter words after they declared independence in 1991. The most unusual of his objections was his distaste for the red robes and black gowns that are the normal attire of the United Nations war crimes tribunal. In Serbia, he said, people in court wear civilian clothes. "I feel frustrated with judges in strange clothing," he said. "They remind me of the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church." This was another indirect play to the audience in Serbia, where the main religion is Orthodox, as opposed to the Roman Catholicism that predominates in Croatia. Judge Wolfgang Schomburg, a German, calmly explained the customs and rules of the tribunal, and suggested that Mr. Seselj, who was trained as a lawyer, should appoint a defense counsel. Mr. Seselj, 48, who came second in Serbian presidential elections in December with one-third of the votes cast, said he would act as his own lawyer. A reporter from The Associated Press traveled from Belgrade with Mr. Seselj, who told the journalist that he was surrendering to the court to "defend the dignity of my 10,000 fighters who fought gallantly during the wars." He said he was going voluntarily "to prove my people's innocence" and "to destroy the evil tribunal, an American instrument against the Serbs." Mr. Seselj's paramilitary troops became known in the early 1990's for their violent role in driving non-Serbs from lands, first in Croatia and then in Bosnia, which he and other Serb leaders like former president Slobodan Milosevic, who is also on trial at the tribunal, wanted to annex into an ethnic Serb area. Mr. Seselj's indictment charges him with eight counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes, including persecution, torture, killing and destruction of homes and mosques. The full indictment was read out in court today at Mr. Seselj's request. The reading took close to three hours; at the end, the clerk enumerated a seemingly interminable list of individual names, said to be the victims of Mr. Seselj's fighters. The accused listened in silence, apparently unmoved. N.Y. Times
  
  Jenny Morningstar
  Babylon
  USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 7:01 am
  

  Seselj also asked the court not to contact the Yugoslavian consulate or government in regard to his detention at the ICTY, he said he had no government backing him for provisional freedom and certainly he did not wan the "mafia, gangster, corrupt government in Belgrade" to have anything to do with him.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 7:06 am
  

  Plavsic to be sentenced in a few minutes.

  Remember Carla's last words:

  she has not cooperated, nothing has changed after her guilty plea.

  
  
  G C
  USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 8:15 am
  Seselji realizes that no one except for a few paid hacks trusts the ICTY. It has been utterly discredited in the last 12 months

  He knows that standing up to the ICTY will make him a hero in the eyes of millions throughout the world, plain and simple.

  The paid hacks and a few racist fanatics will continue to respect the ICTY, but the rest of the world will treat it with the contempt it deserves.
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 10:25 am
  
  Operation Horseshoe

  Thanks to Aleks Stajic’s wonderful exposure of Germany’s involvement in the criminal attack upon Serbia especially the province of Kosovo we may put “Operation Horseshoe” in its proper context: A lie to ‘Blame the Victim’ and to cover the dirty deeds of the authors.

  Is Judge May taking note?
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 10:48 am
  

  Trial Chamber Sentences the Accused to 11 years? Imprisonment And says that ?No Sentence can fully Reflect the Horror of what Occurred or the Terrible Impact on Thousands of Victims?

  There you have it. She is eleven years of her freedom responsible in a matter she did not create or wanted. WShile the real perpetrators are at large discussing matters of international justice
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 11:28 am
  AP

  Racist fanatics respecting the Hague? Somehow I do not think so. Racist fanatics are those lunatics who when not talking about the dangers of the NWO are dreaming of the days of the Ku Klux Klan or of McCarthyism.

  Today they have to make do with lambasting the UN and claiming that UN troops under orders of the NWO masters will overrun the good ol US of A on behalf of some shadowy plot by the Jews.

  It is all rubbish of course but the racists are the ones who value blood and nation so much, they are the ones that hate any other authority other than their state. Unforutunatly most of the people here fall into that right wing ideological category. And scoundrels like these support paramilitaries.

  
  
  A Rosenthal
  Italy

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 11:59 am
  KL

  Gory Vidal was some 'nut' and I think still 'is'. One of his claims to fame is a twisted novel 'Myra Breckenridge'. He's a loony. I remember that screwball during the Democratic convention in Chicago, he and W Buckley were paired on TV. It almost came to blows.

  Now that we know how many countries the US has bombed, I wonder if Gore knows how many countries have benefited.
  
  J P
  US. Wis

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 12:04 pm
  Talking about making new words!!! This is today report from CNN last paragraph: “The decision heightened speculation she could also be called to testify against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is also on trial at the Hague charged with genocide and crimes against humanity in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovonia's 'Iron Lady' awaits fate.” Did anybody heard about Kosovonia???
  
  Dakic Ana
  Serbia

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 12:47 pm
  

  Irish general Colm Mangan took the stand today in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague Tribunal.

  Mangan told the court that he had no information from which he could conclude that Milosevic and Serbia had any kind of connection with the Yugoslav Army attacks on Dubrovnik in the autumn of 1991.

  “When I arrived here I wasn’t convinced, nor did I have proof, that you personally were connected with the attack on Dubrovnik,” he said under cross-examination.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 12:59 pm
  Aleks, I read it. But I am still at a loss why the Germans had such a fixation with the Kosovo problem. There seem to be three suggestion, which I gathered from the article. First, the Germans might have acted out of some kind of atavistic urge, because the KLA consisted of the great-grandsons of Balli Kombetar and Handjak soldiers. But this fails to take into account that half of the KLA were Marxists. Second, Germany wanted to be a step ahead in its military force, and the French and the British wanted to one-up the Germans. This is reminiscent of the days of colonialism, but the colonial comparison breaks down when one considers that all of them were "fighting" over the same plot of land, against the same enemy, and in this kind of situation it would have been preferable for the British, for instance, to let the Germans shoulder the costs while remaining in the background. Third, Germans were reverting to some kind of romantic notion of "self-determination", and for that reason alone, a multiethnic state like Yugoslavia had to go.

  I don't know. Maybe Germany was trying to foment the situation to the level that the Americans would intevene in Kosovo, as they had done in Croatia, but I don't have the foggiest why they would do that. I guess Germany might also have agreed to do the dirty work for the Americans as a token of gratitude for the German unification. The article referred to the wish of the US to consolidate its power in Europe.

  Still, Germany's role can easily be overstated. If Germany had acted out of some atavistic Nazi feeling, it should have been evident in Germany as some kind of resurgence of Nazism (apart from the skinheads from former East Germany). Ustashi should have been mentioned in the West, but in fact, that is not the way I learned about the Ustashi. I learned about the Ustashi from the Serbs.

  On the other hand, it is understandable for the Serbs to stress the Ustasha element of the Croatian nationalism, after they have been called Nazis in the media. The Ustasha ideology has refused to die down in Croatia, and the American intervention on the behalf of the Croat nationalism has hardly accelerated its decline. If I have understood correctly, the Croatian nationalism wasn't one of those petty post-communist nationalisms that could be pushed aside. But I still think this has been a byproduct and not the purpose of the German intervention.

  Gogol, there is one thing I would like to ask. Did the Yale professor say where he was going to give the lecture? Did he cross the ocean just for the testimony, but couldn't stay for another three hours, because he had to be back in Connecticut? He would have arrived in Connecticut at night, even if he had left right away.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 1:34 pm
  

  Jari,

  I am sorry, the professor did not go back to the States but was pushed aside for less than a day to accommodate the Irish Chief of Staff Lt. General Colm Mangan, who in fact was in a hurry to attend a meeting in Dublin, I hope Dublin is not going to war against Iraq. However, the day before this, two days ago, prosecutor Nice (NATO) to justify the disorder with witnesses said, the professor who was back in court today and I hope will be cross examined tomorrow, had a lecture to give restricting his time schedule.

  Towards generals and professors this court is very kind, today judge May (NATO) protected the Irish general from the spill overs of the conflict in Northern Ireland stopping Mr. Milosevic asking some interesting questions.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 2:18 pm
  And scoundrels like these support paramilitaries.

  agreed....those same scoundrels spent a lot of time and money building up the paramilitary KLA/KPC. They promoted psychos like Remi and Ramush to Major Generals and paid these newly minted Major Generals hefty salaries out of US taxpayer dollars.

  agreed...these very same scoundrels airlifted supplies and arms to the likes of Nasir Oric the paramilitary warlord of Srebrenica willfully ignoring UN resolutions

  agreed....these very same scoundrels broke international arms embagros by funding, training, and arming zenophobic paramilitary units of the HVO

  
  
  AP V
  NY
  NY

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 2:21 pm
  Walter, you are right from practical point of view. There are many that disagree with SSSR’ perceptions of international relations - however there is a point there of SSSR falling apart. - Gogol made it:

  “Replacing international values for national ones seems to me like attempting to extend to people and nations the unproven technologies of genetically altered foods.”

  I want to stress the point more:
  The whole SSSR was established based on the Marxist ideology. There are four things in that ideology that they are tightly connected and mutually interactive related to Internationalism:
  Market
  Nation
  State
  Conflict
  

  Since profit (as main driving force of capital) ignores social character of production it attaches “fetish” character to goods and leads to first alienation. “Alienation from act of production”; Which is followed by “Alienation from product”, “Alienation from means of production”, and finally “Alienation from production as a whole” (production, commerce, allocation and consumption).
  Hence social relations in production authenticate socio-economic base of the society, and a workingman is alienated from it, he is consequently alienated from socio-economic superstructure (moral, culture, law, politics). Such a society is based on the exploitation relations in production, which internally and internationally lead to hegemony and conflict; In order to avoid conflict and solve antagonism there is a need to replace such production relations with the cooperative relations.
  Since there was vast majority of the strongest force on World (proletariat) that live under similar conditions alienated from social life; and such a force according to Marxist ideology was the only one willing and capable of changing these antagonistic production relations - there was a first call: First International - “Proletarians all around the World go united.” (And this is where the national interest are replaced by international once”).

  Market is place where profit is realized. Market is place where through competition and a class battle, working labor is exploited. Market is place where working labor is considered as goods and though alienated from its rights. Free market is a capitalist category formed to bust profit and exploit. Since it is historical category formed during formation of capitalistic relations, dialectic materialism predicts that as soon as these relations disappear market will become a place of the new, cooperative relations.

  Capitalism used nation as a tool to form a larger free market, but it become antagonistic since all laws and custom duties are regulated by a nations’ states, and market become bordered by states’ borders, which market as category does not recognize. (Globalization). Nation was considered as historic, social-economic unity based on the language commonalty, close ethnical and cultural relatedness overall; formed on the bases of capitalist socio-economic relations during the formation of capitalism.

  State is a tool in hands of the class in power to preserve established socio-economic relations, category which will disappear under internationalism.

  Internationalism is in fact process, which includes connection between class battles with a social battle of all proletarians around the world overcoming nations and forming one society without state borders on the World, free of conflict.
  Evolution and a formation of such a society will cause state and a nation category to die of.

  Having a society like SSSR where competition, conflict and market were replaced by solidarity, planned economy and “kliring” market including replacement of national interest by international once lead to collapse.

  On the West market participants, under competition and profit pressure, investigated thoroughly the needs of consumers and determined production (what, whom, how, how much etc). Planned economy in the SSSR was relieved these instruments, these driving forces to produce more effectively and more productively. Planned economy incorporates too much input of human knowledge and it was based on people’s conscience not sanctioned by gain or loss
  Socio-economic relations determine the people’s conscience; it is not the opposite that people’s conscience determines their socio-economic relations.

  Even if SSSR planned as Pera suggests: “to follow the world in developing and implementing modern technologies and especially integrated circuits and microprocessors” - That would be to slow simply because they did not have a driving forces behind it.
  Yes, Walter there were examples of conflicts, not building partnership in SSSR international relationship, however they have not been built into the essence of that society - that’s why it was possible to collapse peacefully.
  It was the same with Yugoslavian common property. Essentially that property belonged to labor force. It did not have natural mechanism built into it “I owe” - even though people were conscious of that belonging they really did not feel that is theirs. But new governments in all over ex Yugoslavia took it for themselves and now that property got a titular, which bears that protective mechanism - “It’s mine” - even though its looted.
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 2:49 pm
  

  Due to a schedule change in the Milosevic trial, Friday's Internet video will be added to the Bard archive approx one week later than usual. Tomorrow's Milosevic session will be held in Courtroom III where Tribunal Live has no RealVideo facilities. Live audio from court III will be available as usual via http://domovina.xs4all.nl. Court I, the only court geared for 4-language sessions will be used for an extra Kosovo-related session after the scheduled Ruanda Tribunal Appeal Hearing.

  Frank Tiggelaar Domovina Net
  
  Frank Tiggelaar
  Holland

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 2:58 pm
  Jari, that was just a small summary of the book 'Der Weg in den Krieg' written by Matthias Küntzel. It's simply an eye opener, but unfortunately I think there's no english version of that book. Considering Germany's evolution and the role it plays within the 'international community' since reunification, it seems as we have come to an historical turning point. I mean this in regard to Germany's defiance towards the US and it's stand on the Iraq issue. This is really BIG, but relatively unnoticed. The french, the russians, yes, but I'd say the germans are back and I have no clue what kind of games they are playing. Guess there's more to it, than just Schröder's antiwar-sentiments. If you would read the book, you'd know what I'm talking about. Too bad, there's no english version of it.
  
  Aleks Stajic
  Germany

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 3:35 pm
  A Rosenthal,
  
  A "plot by the shadowy Jews" always comes out of the woodwork when a Government is seeking to deflect responsibility from itself.
  
  Anti-Semitism is quite useful for many governments. Right now half (or more) of the anti-war movement thinks that Bush wants to attack Iraq because of some secret "Zionist plot," not because he has any particular motive of his own. The anti-war movement doesn't blame the U.S. Government for its actions, instead it blames the Jews and accuses them of manipulating the hapless American Government.

  Anti-Semitism also proves useful for the Islamist dictators in the Middle East. They can tell their people, "Hey, it's not our fault you live so hard, it's the all Jews fault. They're conspiring against you."

  One guy who isn't alleging any secret "Zionist plot" is Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic has not mentioned the word Israel once in this so-called trial, and has never made an anti-Semitic remark in his life.

  Tudjman (wartime leader of Croatia) made many anti-Semitic remarks in his book "Wastelands of Historical Reality," accusing the Jews about lying about the Holocaust. And Alija Izetbegovic (wartime leader of the Bosnian Muslims) openly called for the destruction of Israel in his "Islamic Declaration."

  We can see the PLO is using the same tactics as the Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Kosovo-Albanians. They carryout terrorist provocations against Israel, and then when Israel defends itself they accuse Israel of violating their civil rights. The Palestinians shot Mohammed al-Durra, a 12 year old Palestinian boy in front of the global media, and then blamed his shooting on the IDF. Similarly, the Bosnian Muslims massacred their own people in front of the cameras at the Markale Market, and then blamed the Serbs for the massacre.

  The Palestinian rhetoric about "Greater-Israel" and about Ariel Sharon being the "Israeli-Milosevic" should tell you something about who the racists dreaming-up plots about "Jewish conspiracies" really are. Look at this report published by the PLO and see how they demonize Serbia and Israel together.

  So tell me, do you consider Milosevic and his supporters to be the racists that dream-up "shadowy Jewish conspiracies"?
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 4:03 pm
  Following this forum, I confirmed something most of the countries alreay know. Serb nation suffers from the illness called "There is noone better and stronger than us" I read your writings which accuse, muslims collectively, croats, bosnians, albanians,italians and germans, not to mention americans, palestinians...and so on! Is there anyone you get along with in this world, or you suddenly started to believe in reincarnation. No wonder even your songs promote violence and war. You are non-civilized people, therefore I am afraid that you will end up in forums with no actual progress in your non-existing country.
  
  Death of Yugoslavia
  Hell

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 5:06 pm
  

  The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has dropped war crime charges against the former Chief of the Croatian Army, General Janko Bobetko. Medical experts appointed by the tribunal have declared the 83-year-old Bobetko too ill to stand trial.

  Read more at:

  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/croa-f26.shtml
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 5:11 pm
  

  Unfortunately the above link is not working here is the other one:

  http://news.serbianunity.net/forums/read.php?f=3&i=28632&t=28632
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 6:17 pm
  It must have been hurting bad to have lost an aggressive war against the peasants and young boys defending their countries. And now your are trying to prove the innocence of your States aggression. Sad.
  
  Observer MK
  UK

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 8:42 pm
  MODERATOR; I have asked before that you delete the posts of those who are coming on with pseudonyms. Death to Yugoslavia should be removed now. Jennie Morningstar, and Observer, Rita Rita, and all the rest of the hate mongers is one person only. A woman named Barbara, an Albanian from Cincinnati, Ohio. She goes on all Serb forums and provokes. This is a very good forum with a lot of intelligent people and space is being taken up by this one woman who does this constantly.

  It is not fair to those who use their OWN NAMES AS WAS AGREED.
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 8:43 pm
  The indictment against SEselj did not contain 'some Croat words' but like all of the Hague's translations was in the Croat variant of the common tongue which can be considered Serbian (shtokavian).

  Particularly funny is the reference to Srijem which is mostly populated by Serbs, there are some Catholics (today Croats) but who speak either ekavian (and call it Srem like the Orthodox Serbs) or ikavian (and call it Srim). Srijem is a formulation which is used in the official Croat media which is the standard there.
  
  Igor Jaramaz
  Canada

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 9:03 pm
  I notice "Death" has a lot to say to a "non-existing country." May her hate choke her.
  
  Anna Pullinger
  United States

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 9:18 pm
  Observer,

  Come back when you know what you are talking about or else expand on what you mean instead of just throwing out cheap and cowardly insults. If you want to discuss anything here, everyone is willing. Otherwise, find another victim for your false attack.
  
  Anna Pullinger
  United States

• Thursday February 27, 2003 at 9:26 pm
  ?The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has dropped war crime charges against the former Chief of the Croatian Army, General Janko Bobetko. Medical experts appointed by the tribunal have declared the 83-year-old Bobetko too ill to stand trial. WSWS

  Plavsic receives eleven years. She is a lost soul. Most of her countrymen will think of her as a coward and a traitor.

  ----------------------------------------------JL Why do you use your initials? When others on here use their names in good faith. As for Gore Vidal he is a respected writer. He has written many, many books combining fiction and non fiction and has a very wide audience. Was he wrong about the bombing?As for the countries who were bombed benefiting from the bombing, I do not think so.

  Republicans cannot stand criticism. The bombing of Iraq is about OIL. Everyone knows that. Barbra Streisand, Bill Mahr, Geo. Clooney, Susan Sarandon, Rosie O‘Donnell, Mike Farrel, and eveyone who speaks out against the war are called communists or traitors by Republicans. Anti war people are not traitors, they have compassion. For the last twelve years Iraq has been being bombed and the people are under extreme hardships by sanctions imposed upon them. I am a Democrat and I know Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albrights have had a great deal to do with this and I do not deny it. Quit smearing people everytime they have an opinion that does not suit yours. I have an anti war sign in my window and I am not a traitor nor am I a communist.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 1:47 am
  Over 50,000 Albanians in Pristina protest the arrest of Fatmir Limaj. Limaj has been indicted on war crimes charges against Serbs and non Serbs.

  Demanding the release of Fatmir Limaj who is being held in Slovenia waiting to be extradited to the Hague. (I thought he had no problem in turning himself into the Hague.)

  A lot of red flags but I did not see the red/white and blue. Hmmmm......

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  SJC
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 3:28 am
  A lot has been said about who the Serbs hate, but I am surprised to see how much the Democrats and the Republicans hate each other. For those who think Serbia is a racist society should visit Serbia. It is as simple as that. Practically all the death talk has come from the anti-Serb lobby, which makes even these disruptive messages instructive.

  I think the German involvement in the Croatian independence goes like this. It is the US that wanted to break up Yugoslavia, but it didn't know if Yugoslavia should stay together and turn market economy in one piece, or whether it should be broken down to pieces to yield manageable entities. The US was undermining Yugoslav credit in the international financial institutions in 1991. Gogol has mentioned this a couple of times. There is black on white.

  Germany wanted to break up Yugoslavia. That was in accordance with the redrawing of the map of Eastern Europe, which began by the German unification. Austria was about to join the EU in 1995, and Slovenia and Croatia were too strategically located between Italy and Austria for the Austrians and the Germans to ignore. If there was any ideology involved, it must have been the European integration.

  I think it is unrealistic to suppose that Germany was having some kind of plan for military buildup in the Balkans, which it could carry out behind the US back. This is simply out of the question. In military matters Germany is operating in a practically non-existent leash. Germany can hardly export a military radio without the US knowing.

  But why would the US let Germany get involved in the Balkans? Probably the reason had everything to do with PR. The independence movements in the Balkans were a political no-go for the US. Think about the Croatian Ustasha, the Bosnian fundamentalism and the Kosovan Marxism-Nazism. So the US decided to send the Germans. One could always trust the Germans to get the job done, and the German Nazi past constituted a powerful smokescreen for the Americans. German foreign policy may indeed have been very malleable after the German reunification, and on the other hand, as long as the US wasn't sure how exactly Yugoslavia should be transformed into a market economy, Germany could put forward almost any plan and the Americans would accept it.

  When the Serbs started seeing the obvious parallels between the Ustasha and the Croatian independece movements, the American propaganda could simply start accusing Serbs of being Nazis. This inversion (remember the word?) is what the propaganda did to the Serb term "ethnic cleansing".

  I am not sure if the present German opposition to the American foreign policy proves Germany's independence in Nato. The point that has been made to substantiate the German involvement in the Balkans is that Germany could start realizing its military ambitions independently of the Americans. In Iraq, the situation is the opposite. It seems Germany is doing anything to stop the war.

  If Germany is opposing war now, why couldn't it have been opposing war in the Balkans? Remember that Chirac (to name him once more) was the first to throw in the towel, when the ports in Montenegro were to be besieged during the bombing.

  It is possible that the US sent the Germans only so that they could screw up and the American involvement in the Balkans could then be seen as a salvage operation to do something about the mess that the Europeans had got themselves into. Nobody would then be so ungrateful to the Americans as to remind them of the fascist connections of the Croatian independence movement. These connections are quite well-known, by the way. Tudjman may have got a little too much publicity once in a while, but everybody knew he was a revisionist. Nobody sent anyone of note to his funeral.

  As long as the US is refusing to accept its complicity in the war crimes, none of its partners will do anything about the criminals either. The Croatian war criminals know too much about the American involvement. Some courts in Europe have been critical of the Balkan wars, but as long as the US doesn't want to hear their criticisms, nobody is going to do anything. That is how much power the Americans have, no matter how hard they try to deny it.

  Suppose we get our happy ending with court-martial in the US. What would happend to Milosevic? I was almost about to say that it doesn't matter. But if we have learned anything during the past year, at least we should know that the prosecution has no evidence to convict Milosevic. This may not be because Milosevic is any better than the rest of the politicians. It just shows how hard it is to pin a war crime on a politician. Those who are crusading for the spirit of Nuremberg have forgotten that the German politicians were military men. Milosevic is not.

  On the other hand, if Milosevic were as clever as many seem to think, he shouldn't have got himself in The Hague. That is the bottomline, and I think he should be punished for that alone. Similarly, he would have had the possibility to apply for membership in the UN and saved his people a lot of misery when he saw things were going sour.

  However, if the Milosevic trial is fair, it cannot sentence anyone just for being there! There are powerful reasons for him being in The Hague, but they are political. The trial is political, and any attempt to break the deadlock has to be political as well.

  Fasten your seatbelts, and grab the popcorn. You don't anything about the trial until you have seen this: http://mitglied.lycos.de/raddy73/roundhead/highevery.html .
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 3:44 am
  

  Frank

  There is no audio!

  
  
  Gogol C
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 3:49 am
  

  FRANK

  THERE IS NO A U D I O

  
  
  G C
  US

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 3:54 am
  

  THERE is AUDIO IN FRENCH

  ça me sufit, merci
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 3:58 am
  For a reliable analysis of what is happening in The Hague, this is also a good site: http://www.dancehallreggae.com/DancehallMedia/ .
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 4:04 am
  

  Judge May (NATO) is already censoring the nature of the questions. No questions about international laware to be asked to a professor of international law, because the tribunal is the international law, judge May (NATO) said.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 4:29 am
  

  Jari,

  Mr. Milosevic reminded the professor who was present at one of the EC conferences about the war in Croatia that when they met with Croatian refusal, he said the only thing left was to ask the Germans to influence the Croats. The Germans had already promised the recognition of Croatian administrative borders the professor said.
  
  G C
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 4:44 am
  

  The desire to break Yugoslavia by the American goes back to the end of the WW 2. Truman asked the British to regain influence in the Balkans by intervening in Yugoslavia as they did in Greece. England declined the invitation while the Americans kept busy checking the nature of the governments of liberated Europe.

  Few minutes ago, Mr. Milosevic said, to be stopped by May (NATO) that the implosion of Yugoslavia was a historical first, only another country had suffered the same fate. May (NATO) stopped him.
  
  G C
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 4:59 am
  

  Latest, the professor claims he had information in late 1991 indicating the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina had already begun. Mr. Milosevic astonished asked for details, to what the professor said Ante Marcovic had told him so!

  
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:19 am
  Interesting. What's the professor's name? I don't care if he is the prosecution witness or the defense witness, as long as he is telling the truth!
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:25 am
  

  As far as I can tell his name is O'cunn . . .

  I also don't think is telling the truth.

  I think he has selective memory and selective notes.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:36 am
  

  Herbert S. Okun

  Ambassador Herbert Stuart Okun is the U. S. member of the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board and a Visiting Lecturer on International Law at Yale Law School.

  From 1991-1993 Okun was Special Adviser on Yugoslavia to former U. S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance; he also served as Deputy Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. From 1993-1997 Okun mediated the dispute between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. He also served as Special Adviser to the International Commission on Missing Persons in the former Yugoslavia in 1996-1997.

  From 1990-1997 Okun was the Founding Executive Director of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, a not-for-profit organization providing voluntary assistance to help establish free-market financial systems in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Asia.

  A recognized authority on Russia, Germany, Eastern Europe, and human rights issues, Okun served in Moscow, Berlin, Munich, Lisbon, Geneva, Naples and Brasilia during a diplomatic career in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1955 to 1991, He speaks French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, Okun was Deputy Permanent Representative and Ambassador to the United Nations from 1985-1989. He represented the U.S. on the Security Council, the Commission on Human Rights, the Disarmament Commission, and other UN bodies.

  From 1980-1983 he was Ambassador to the former German Democratic Republic.

  Between 1978-1980 Okun was Vice In the State Department he served as Special Assistant to Secretary William P. Rogers and as Director of the Office of Soviet Affairs, Okun was born in New York City. He was awarded a B.A. with great distinction from Stanford and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He has a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard. He served on active duty with the U.S. Army. He is married and has three daughters.

  
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:41 am
  

  . . . a not-for-profit organization providing voluntary assistance to help establish free-market financial systems in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Asia.

  What a coincidence!
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:42 am
  
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:53 am
  

  Herbert Okun

  Career diplomat, former Special Advisor on Yugoslavia to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Deputy Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. Member of the Board of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security (LAWS) and its affiliate the Committee for National Security (CNS) which gives this biography:

  Ambassador Herbert Okun is the U.S. member and Vice-President of the International Narcotics Control Board, and Visiting Lecturer on International Law at Yale Law School. Previously, he was the Deputy Chairman on the U.S. delegation at the SALT II negotiations and led the U.S. delegation in the trilateral U.S.-U.K.-USSR Talks on the CTBT. From 1991 to 1993 Ambassador Okun was Special Advisor on Yugoslavia to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Personal Envoy of the U.N. Secretary General, and Deputy Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. He also served as Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN from 1985 to 1989 serving on the General Assembly, the Disarmament Committee and the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Amb. Okun was also U.S. Ambassador to the former German Democratic Republic.

  He was from 1990-97 Executive Director of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, "a non-profit organization providing voluntary assistance to help establish free-market financial systems in former communist countries", see his biography at International Security Studies at Yale University, where he is also a board member. This Corps is a de facto agency of USAID, see how it is listed country-by-country in their report. Although it is not relevant to Human Rights Watch, this curriculum vitae gives a good impression of the kind of international elite created by such programs.

  Okun is also a member emeritus of the board of the European Institute in Washington, an Atlanticist lobby. It organises the European-American Policy Forum, the European-American Congressional Forum, and the Transatlantic Joint Security Policies Project. Okun is a special advisor to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict funded by the Carnegie Corporation. (It links pro-western international elite figures advocating a formal structure for control of states by the "international community").

  Okun was a member of a Task Force (including Bianca Jagger and George Soros) on war criminals: see their report . Although it also demands "UN Sanctions Against States Harboring Indicted War Criminals" it is unlikely that the Task Force members meant the man quoted at the start of their report, President Clinton.

  A curiosity: this human rights supporter is accused of an attempt to destroy the right to free speech, in his post at the International Narcotics Control Board: see A Duty to Censor: U.N. Officials Want to Crack Down on Drug War Protesters in the libertarian Reason Magazine.

  A truly impartial witness!
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:55 am
  

  The above's link:

  http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:sLuOHDAajNQC:www.new-world-order.org/HRW-behind.html+cyrus+vance+and+ambassador+okun&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

  
  
  G C
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 9:19 am
  

  Sorry for the glitch in today's audio. I had configured the system last night for today's sessions on the basis of the information I had received from the Hague last night.

  At 9:45 this morning, after I had gone to work, another correction followed:

  Press Advisory . Avis pour information

  (Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document)

  The Hague, 28 February 2003

  P.I.S./PA084

  Important Schedule Changes for Friday 28 February 2003

  Please be advised that the Milosevic Hearing began this morning at 9.00 a.m. in Courtroom III and will not begin at 1 p.m. as previously indicated. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

  I was in a meeting all morning and found the above message after the session had finished.

  The Milosevic-case footage will be re-digitized from tape for Bard's archive as soon as I have recieved it.

  
  
  Frank Tiggelaar
  Holland

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 10:37 am
  Jari, Staja & Co.,

  This is to complement your discussion: Sean Gervasi: Germany, U.S., and the Yugoslav Crisis

  "[...] According to recently declassified documents obtained by CovertAction, the U.S. adopted a similar strategy toward the countries of Eastern Europe, including Yugoslavia. In September 1982, when the region seemed stable and the Berlin Wall had seven years to stand, the U.S. drew up National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 54, "United States Policy toward Eastern Europe." Labeled SECRET and declassified with light censorship in 1990, (3) it called for greatly expanded efforts to promote a "quiet revolution" to overthrow Communist governments and parties. While naming all the countries of Eastern Europe, it omitted mention of Yugoslavia.

  In March 1984, a separate document, NSDD 133, "United States Policy toward Yugoslavia," was adopted and given the even more restricted classification: SECRET SENSITIVE. When finally declassified in 1990, NSDD 133 was still highly censored, with less than two-thirds of the original text remaining. (4) Nonetheless, taken together, the two documents reveal consistent policy logic. [...]

  [...] While Eastern Europe was well on the way to European integration--and economic crisis--Yugoslavia began to suspend the "reforms" to which it had initially agreed. That resistance brought down the wrath of certain Western powers, which then sought to break Yugoslavia by promoting separatism and igniting the ethnic tensions that had haunted the country for centuries. [...]"
  
  Dusom Sarajlija
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 10:48 am
  The moderator allows the posts of the OBSERVOR, DEATH TO YUGOSLAVIA, and JENNIE MORNINGSTAR, RITA RITA, et al to stand. Since I and many others have given our names in good faith I find it necessary to give the name of one BARBARA MIKULIC, of Cincinnati, Ohio. When you come upon these hate posts from now on be aware that they are all written by this one individual.Many of us have been aware of this woman since 1999 when she tried her best to bring hate and confrontation between Serbs and Croats in the United States. Many of us are of mixed Serb/Croat and we do not need nor want something hateful coming between the Serb/Croat communities in the US.It is a shame that the Moderator allows her to take up space that could be used by intelligent people whose posts are read and looked forward to by more than they know.

  
  
  Kathryn Love
  sjc
  USA

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 10:58 am
  Dusom, that was a valuable piece of information. Here you have it. The US criticized Yugoslavia for suspending the reforms in 1984.

  I must say this makes perfect sense. The policy has very little to do with Milosevic, who became "Chairman of the City Committee of the League of Communists of Belgrade in 1984," according to the indictment.

  It is difficult, and useless, to give advice in retrospect, but it would have been advisable for Milosevic to cooperate with the West more closely. Maybe that would have cost him his political support, maybe he would have ended up breaking Yugoslavia anyway. I don't know. But if I were to pinpoint one colossal failure in Milosevic's career, it is the complacency towards the new status of the Federal Republic. Sure, he was "only" president of Serbia, but everybody knows he could have influenced the federal government to apply for the UN membership. That would have been a signal to the West that Yugoslavia accepted the new status quo. When the West noticed Yugoslavia was playing games with the new situation, it started pressuring Serbia with the Croatian Serbs. That is why the West now comes up with the tale that Milosevic had some control over the Krajina Serbs. The West is desperate to get back at Milosevic somehow, even if it knows the West was wrong.

  And now I understand what Lord Owen meant when he said Milosevic was always too late. Milosevic is deliberately trying his counterparts' patience until they start taking desperate measures. Then he can blame the other party of overreacting and only then do what he was expected to do - only "too late". His tactic is to push the others to commit crimes, if necessary, in order to make himself look good, which he manages to do up to a certain point. However, even if he manages to stay innocent technically, it is obvious he should pay the price politically.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 11:13 am
  Here are two interesting links. Something to read for the weekend:

  http://home.pfaffenhofen.de/drkalten/kosmet.pdf

  http://home.pfaffenhofen.de/drkalten/glob-med.pdf
  
  Aleks Stajic
  Germany

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 12:39 pm
  To stay on good terms with the JURIST site, it may be a good idea to comment briefly on a new piece in the Forum. This is a piece by Julie Mertus. It can be found at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew98.php .

  The interesting passage in this writing is the following:

  "The U.S. bent over backward in Yugoslavia to argue that none of its actions - not the bombing, the extensive sponsorship of civil society, or the war crimes investigations and trials - amounted to support for regime change."

  OK, the US may have avoided the use of the term "regime change", but as Bin Cheng says, it does not matter what you call something, it matter what this something is: ex re, sed non ex nomine.

  And it is quite obvious the US was planning a regime change. Strobe Talbott "predicted" the Milosevic indictment and said it might change the plans. After the indictment came, the US wanted to have nothing to do with an indicted war criminal. That hardly enhances international intercourse, and in practice a regime change is the only option.

  But Mertus takes us closer to the point when she talks talking about the violation of self-determination, which a regime change entails. The Clinton administration had a very handy way to circumvent such a violation. It called Yugoslavia a "failed state", which had lost the right to govern its own people. Pretty neat: Yugoslavia had no self-determination, so there was no legitimate regime which had to be "changed".

  There is also some circumstantial evidence which suggests that the US was aiming at a regime change. The winged words of Mr Shattuck about the trap for Milosevic are on point.

  Mertus compares the regime change agenda for Iraq and the lack of such an (explicit) agenda for Yugoslavia, as if there were a significant change between Yugoslavia and Iraq. Alas, Ari Fleischer spoiled that nice distinction when he defended the coming Saddam tribunal by saying: what worked in Yugoslavia, will work in Iraq. And indeed, Mertus makes an artificial distinction between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. This is not a legally relevant distinction. When Fleischer made a comment like that, he made in the name of the US, and thus he gave the official US interpretation of the ICTY as well, only belatedly.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 12:56 pm
  I noticed there was an even more recent piece in Forum: Margaret Burnham on War Powers.

  This is interesting:

  "On February 24, a federal district court dismissed a lawsuit challenging President Bush's authority to wage war against Iraq without explicit congressional authorization. The court ruled the dispute to be a non-justiciable political question."

  You took the words right out of my mouth: "a non-justiciable political question". That what the Milosevic trial is all about.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 3:23 pm
  Ari Fliescher needs to hash out a better basis, than what happened in Kosovo, when selling the war on Iraq. Seems it's been picked up by W's talking heads. When I hear Bush say it, I'll really be discouraged. It has happened before, where he disagreed with his advisors, explaining that there was a 'bureaucratic snafu'. But I'm not optomistic.

  My post to Freerepublic
  Powell, McCain, mimed General Clarke and stupidly implied endorsement of Clintonese criminal involvement in Kosovo. Sad to say, Condi refers likewise re Kosovo and Milosevic and has to re educate herself as to what actually happened , and what's going on at the Hague 'tribunal' .

  There is no similarity between Kosovo and Iraq except that they are exact opposites.

  My Email to Rush, 2nd one
  Rush( rush@eibnet.com)(Rush is top talk, 600 radio stations, 20mil weekly listeners)

  Stupid, stupid remark today and not the first time you made the same comparison blunder. "we should do just like Clinton did in bombing Kosovo, and just go in and take care of Iraq"? Again, the Kosovo and Iraq problems are complete opposites in every way and so is Milosevic and Saddam opposites! Have your staff check 'The Hague Tribunal" revelations.
  
  J P
  US. Wis

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 4:02 pm
  
  Operation Comic Opera

  Comments upon “a 97-page expert report examining Serbian propaganda tactics during the Balkan wars. Written by Professor Renaud de la Brosse of the University of Reims, France, it was filed (last week) by the prosecutor in the Milosevic case.”

  The report states Milosevic's propaganda campaign was based on the same techniques as used by Adolf Hitler,

  Each time I believe this court cannot sink any lower into the trough of calumny, distortion, dishonesty, deception, bias, racism … it never ceases to surprise me with its ability to plumb the depths evermore - even into the mud at the bottom of the pond.

  De la Brosse claims the Serbian authorities used the media as a weapon in their military campaign.

  Oh how uniquely jolly beastly of them: that’s not cricket old chap. Blair and his chums would never stoop so low- would they - did they? Like hell they did and with knobs on. Remember the refugee convey - among scores of other scams - “shelled by Serb artillery” until the bomb fragments among the remains were discovered to belong to Nato?

  We are told Milosevic’s Nazi-style propaganda campaign was named ‘Operation Opera’. In fact there is good reason to suspect that this is just the most recent Nato scam. Remember ‘Operation Horseshoe’ - one can just picture the authors doubled up with mirth as they discover an appropriate title that corresponds with what it truly was - ‘Operation Horseshit’.

  Remember Racak and the trucks in the Danube, Cherie Blair’s Rape Camps which did not exist, Cluster Bomber Blair’s Death Camps - The Trepca Mines, Ball’s phantasmagorial statistics, based on KLA data, that chalked up “10,356” lives against the Serbs in spite of Bukoshi’s statements that the KLA were killing Kosovars by the thousand and when only some three thousand were missing, Nauman’s ‘famous mad cat that walks on a pot of hot soup’ while the ‘nasty’ Serbs used tanks against the KLA, the mortar bomb on Market Street Sarajevo, the picture that fooled the world …

  According to Maestro de la Brosse: Milosevic’s ‘Nazi style propaganda’ went so far as to remind the Serbs of their terrible history at the hands of the Nazi axis and Islam when the attacking Croats took up again their Nazi symbols and the Mujahedin started chopping off Serbs heads - and gloating about it:

  Not only did the nationalist ideology reach back 600 years to tales of the defeat of Serbia by the Ottoman forces at the battle of Kosovo Polje, it also encompassed the more factual and more recent tragedies suffered by Serbs during World War Two at the hands of Croatian pro-Nazi Ustashe.

  By the early Nineties, an extremist element of rising Croatian nationalism fed the flames of fear, especially in Serb majority regions of Croatia, by rehabilitating Ustashe symbols.

  Serbian television and radio's repetitive use of pejorative descriptions, such as "Ustashe hordes", "Vatican fascists", "Mujahedin fighters", "fundamentalist warriors of Jihad", and "Albanian terrorists", quickly became part of common usage.

  And this de la Brosse equates with ‘Nazi propaganda’. My God how much more wicked can these Serbs get: they’re almost as bad as those non-PC Yorkshire men who ‘call a spade a shovel’.

  What does de la Brosse make of the Blairs their chums and their dodgy dossiers I wonder: All sweetness and light compared to the “Butcher of Belgrade” and his “Red Witch” wife?

  Blair’s New Labour BBC triumvirate warns its editors and presenters to toe the party line while Blair’s wife threatens newspaper editors with the sack for criticising Tony’s government.

  As for Blair’s chums cast your eyes over the CNN ‘Script Approval’ system.

  Read the whole article on ‘Operation Opera’ for more good laughs - and weep at the injustice of it all.

  My French is not so good. Am I correct in translating Renaud de la Brosse into the aphorism: ‘Daft as a Brush’?

  What is this so-called evidence filed by the ICTY if it not actually propaganda itself - the libretto for some new fantastic black comic opera by Maestro de la Brosse?

  Remember Judge May: Churchill’s friend ‘Round objects’!
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:16 pm
  
  “What's the moral of this story?”

  ‘Okay, Tony Blair, let's talk about morality. It's not easy, since when the U.K. leader speaks about the morality of war on Iraq, he mostly means saying the word a lot: "The moral choice in relation to this is a moral choice that has to weigh up the moral consequences"; "whatever our faults, Britain is a very moral nation"; "There is a moral dimension to this question." Etc.’ Rick Salutin of The Globe and Mail: 28 February 2003.

  Read on …

  I see at least one person in the USA is getting the measure of Sir Anthony as he prepares for his new love that dare not speak its name: The Nth Crusade.

  When will Mr Morality begin to address the contradictions generated by his support for Islamic terror in Kosovo I wonder?

  More to the point when will del Ponte honour her promises to indict the Leaders of the erstwhile KLA "terrorists"?
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Friday February 28, 2003 at 5:57 pm
  

  Peter,

  The meaning of

  passer la brosse , figurative meaning, is to mask, to hide. No doubt Renaud de la Brosse is just a joke.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn., USA