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February 28, 2004

Milosevic Acquittal Likely

Well, as this AP article relates, Slobodan Milosevic is likely to be acquitted of genocide.

When U.N. prosecutors opened their case against Slobodan Milosevic two years ago, they set out to get him convicted of genocide. The consensus today is, they failed.

And why are we not surprised? If Milosevic had been American officer, though, I’m sure he’d have been tried, convicted, and sentenced within a week.

Many Serbs would cheer it as vindicating their view that Serbia stands wrongly accused. Others likely will see it as a distortion of Europe's darkest chapter since World War II.

Oh, Europe can get a whole lot darker yet. Just give it time and those wonderful international institutions. All they’ll manage with Milosevic is to nail him on a bunch of lesser charges like “not doing enough to promote harmony and diversity”. They might get him on something involving bad checks and evading European VAT taxes too. Who knows? The US sent one powerful signal to thugs like him when we blew up his house. Now the European Organ’s of Justice, which of course just pound out endless and overwrought compositions, are signaling the next batch of genocidal national socialist war criminals that “We just talk, and you can probably walk.”

Balkan peace envoys testified that Milosevic knew Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic, intended to slaughter Srebrenica's Muslims and did not stop them. Both men top the tribunal's list of most-wanted fugitives.
Or I guess they also sent the signal, “Yes, you can run. Yes, you can hide. And we’ll be down at the bistro bitching about Americans in case you need us for anything.” You might find it odd that Europeans can’t seem to find these two pieces of war criminal garbage, but always remember that this is Europe we’re talking about, where corruption is rampant and goes all the way to the top. Yes, I’m talking about Jacques Chirac and his cute little deal with Ratko Mladic.
The French President, Jacques Chirac, negotiated a secret deal to protect Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general accused of Europe's worst atrocities since World War II, according to evidence submitted to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Now we can understand more fully how badly Hitler screwed up by ending up in a bunker instead of cutting a deal with De Gaulle to get a safe haven in France in return for art work looted from the Louvre.
Mr Chirac allegedly agreed to sabotage the extradition of Mladic to face genocide charges for his role in the planned extermination of Bosnian Muslims, including the massacre of 7000 men and boys in the UN safe haven of Srebrenica in 1995.
And since when have the French ever heard of a massacre they didn’t support? Heck, just look at French casualties in WW-I under Joffré, Petain, or Foch.
In exchange, Mladic handed over two French pilots held for 14 weeks by his forces after their Mirage fighter jet was shot down outside Sarajevo.
He probably handed them over because he just couldn’t stand their snide, sniveling, condescending remarks anymore. But it is nice to know that a European genocidal war criminal can get immunity just by capturing two, yes just two, French target drone pilots. Anyway, now that this is out in the open, you’d think we’d be able to find Mladic. Not so.
Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, have been at large in the French-controlled sector of Bosnia ever since.
They’re still “at large”, probably down at the bistro with their French drinking buddies.
The chief UN prosecutor has described it as a "moral disgrace" that NATO forces have not seized the two ringleaders of the Bosnian Serb extermination campaign.
No need to use scare quotes around “moral disgrace”. It is, after all, an article about Chirac.
Mr Chirac has also vehemently denied allegations that he blocked air strikes against Mladic's forces as they overran a battalion of Dutch blue berets in Srebrenica.
And the peaceniks wanted us to be “allied” with this guy. Amazing isn’t it? They indeed provide the best air support since the Bay of Pigs, but I’m still at a loss as to why they still put pilots in their French built Dassault target drones.

February 28, 2004 in Politics | Permalink

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