Radovan Karadzic's bad hair day

Come to think about it, like Donald Trump, he never did have a good hair day.

...agree with the overall sentiment of your article, I'd also say that penile dysfunction and getting high on cat piss belong to the "fishing for cheap laughs" category and as such are best avoided, if you don't mind me saying so.

Elsewhere, I share your excitement.

... it's not just your fact-checking abilities!
It's your writing style that sucks too...

Agonizing!!!

your unattractive wife and daughter ("in hiding" from your womenfolk certainly had its benefits!).

pseudo-intellectual legalists with severe cases of erectile dysfunction

perhaps Rade Bulatovic and Voja were just too busy getting high on cat pee

what a stupid way to write about the most important thing that happened in Serbia for years!

Watching the BBC last night and this morning I squirmed as all of the retired "experts" of the 1990's (some still half frozen and visibly thawing from their cryogenic sleep) were wheeled out and began spouting their inaccuracies and contradictions as they had done during the 1990's. The failed politicians, diplomats and negotiators, the "academics" and "journalists" all appeared from their dormant slumber for the class reunion of "Serb-bashing class of 1995" (better make the most of it cos there will probably only be one more left!!)

A great day for "Justice" and for upholding "International Law" they all proclaimed! The irony of these selectively applied concepts lost in this orgy of self-congratulation. The BBC was at its best once again!!!

Now don't get me wrong, there is no doubt that "justice" should prevail and that Serbia must confront what was done in the 1990's. However, ALL THOSE responsible for war crimes in the Balkans (Serb, Croat, Muslim, Albanian) should be held to account and be brought to "justice" but the cases of Haradinaj and Oric show that "justice" is strangely enigmatic for some.

Serbia has missed a trick. In fact it has missed 8 years of tricks. 8 years in which to stand up and be counted instead of political infighting and pandering to corruption by useless politicians and "leaders". The fall of Milosevic should have heralded a complete program of self-examination and reform enabling the trials IN BEOGRAD of all those that have so disgraced the Serbian name and image with their thuggery (Milosevic included). Instead it has shipped off the clowns to the circus that is the ICTY. Out of sight, out of mind, issue not dealt with.

Letting other people solve their problems is unfortunately a predominant theme in Serbia "EVROPA!! The British and the Germans will sort this mess out once we join", you'd be surprised how many times I have heard this in Serbia.

The upholding of "International Law" though?! Hilarious!!! In fact, Im still laughing from watching the British Foreign Minister David Milliband MP go an about the importance of International Law and then include Kosovo in the same sentence!! Brilliant!! David, would you like to borrow my International Law textbooks as it appears yours have a few chapters missing? (The laws of Secession, "Humanitarian Intervention", The Laws of War and Occupation, The UN Charter, The Helsinki Acts etc, etc)

And lets not forget EU foreign policy guru Javier Solana (in fact the list is endless). Now remind me Javier, what job did you have in 1999? International Law?! Justice?!

Let me know when someone finds them....

completely honest with us? Something

your unattractive wife and daughter ("in hiding" from your womenfolk certainly had its benefits!).

and

It's not only pseudo-intellectual legalists with severe cases of erectile dysfunction who supported you over the years.

tells me that he was expelled from UK. Either that or I was wrong assuming that UK belongs to Civilized World.

And one question for the editorial team of the Blog, why do we have the joy of reading the musings of this Colonial Dragoon wannabie? Is he one of your principal shareholders?

There seems to be one basic misunderstanding around prosecution of war criminals - namely, that justice is universal. It is not. It's a subject to point of view.

Does it really matter?

No.

Let me illustrate:

The prerequisite to being a "war criminal" is losing the war. Winners are not war criminals, losers are. If Third Reich managed to prevail, or if Serbs managed to quietly and inconspicuously get rid of non-serbs, they would be in the similar position as winning forces of the two world wars or as USA is today - the victims would be terrorist rogue nations, and millions starved and dismembered would be unfortunate victims of the otherwise justified war.

The pro-domestic-war-criminals folks' argument always hinges on the above.

But that has nothing to do with the issue at hand. While nothing can be done about winners, Serbia has been given a chance that only 'losers' enjoy - to get rid of own thugs. Germany has been given the same chance in 1945 and they used it well.

War losers are the only ones given a rare priviledge to cull own monstrums. Throughout human history the idea of justice was kept alive and evolved via vehicle of war losers. That is the only moment when powerful thugs must face their victims.

And Serbia must exploit this priviledge.

Balkan Backdrop

"The current Balkan crisis, and America's role in it, offers an opportunity to indulge this curiosity. However, any examination of a subject as complex as the Balkans must necessarily be preceded by a brief historical review of the region: the Roman/Orthodox split in the Christian church and the subsequent five centuries of Muslim Ottoman rule ensured that the Yugoslavia that was to be formed in 1918 would be a land simmering with religious discord - a situation not eased by the earlier incursions of the Habsburgs in the north and the Bulgars in the east. The setting up of the Catholic State of Croatia under the fascist Ustase in the wake of the German massacres of Orthodox Serbs - and jews, muslims and gypsies on a lesser scale. Another area of discord during the war was the split between the ultra-Serbian royalist Chetniks under Mihailovich and the more ethnically-mixed communist/republican Partisans under Tito, a Coat (it is strange that this historical aspect has not been taken into account by any publicised analysis of the current crisis: after all, the 'Bosnian Serbs' are self-proclaimed Chetniks, a minority group among Serbs as a whole, and to imply that they - the Chetniks - reflect the aspirations of all Serbs is therefore misleading, and smacks of duplicity).

At this point it is necessary to recall that at the end of World War 2, America emerged with three-quarters of the world's invested capital and two-thirds of the world's industrial capacity - Russia with its infrastructure decimated. The distribution of American aid that followed was significant in the choice of countries so aided, and the relative amounts involved. Russia was denied aid, and the reason given by the US for this denial (which, incidentally, circumvented UN agreements) was that, at the critical Moscow Conference which started on the 10th March 1947, the Russians had spurned America's gestures of compromise - conveniently disregarding the fact that on the 12th March 1947 (just two days into the conference) Truman had dropped his bombshell of a speech to Congress - his 'Doctrine', which was, in effect, an ultimatum to Stalin: you're either with us - or against us! The Marshall Plan was announced three months later. Between 1946 and 1961 the US distributed $8.7 billion of economic aid and $7.9 billion of military aid to the five dictatorships of Turkey, Greece, South Korea, South Vietnam and Formosa (Taiwan). This was more aid than Europe - with a greater population - received over the same period. Furthermore, of the economic aid received by Europe, fascist Spain received $1 billion ($2.5 billion for her Indo-Chinese war); and Spain, $500 million.

George Kennan, who was head of the US State Department Planning Staff in the late '40s (and protégé of James Forrestal), supplied the official rationale that lay behind the above facts concisely in articles he wrote at the time under the pseudonym of 'Mr. X'. He stated "The United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate - and to promote tendencies which eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power".

These irreconcilable ideological differences between Russia on the one hand, and Britain and America on the other, meant that their wartime alliance had been an alliance of convenience, of pragmatism (e.g. contrary to America's assurance to Russia in May '42 that a 'second front' would be opened up later that year, this, in fact, did not occur until June '44 - when it became clear to the Western Allies that the Russians were advancing inexorably westwards). Thus, at war's end in 1945, the Western Allies, for their part, immediately reverted to their pre-war anticommunist strategy. This entitled the recruitment of key Nazis - such as the chief of Intelligence on the Eastern Front, General Reinhard Gehlen (who, with the assistance of the CIA, formed the West German Intelligence agency, the BND), and the channeling of many others - such as wanted war criminals like Eichmann, Barbie, Mengele et al - to sanctuary in the West (primarily South America). This channel ran through Italy, and understandably, due to its geographic proximity and its close relationship with the Vatican, many of the escapees were Croatian Ustase (including the Poglavnik, Croatian Fuehrer, Ante Pavelic, a wanted war criminal). This escape channel was a Vatican-controlled operation run by a Croatian priest, Fr. Kronoslav Draganovich, Secretary of the Confraternity of San Girolamo in Rome, member of Interarium, and a man, moreover, who co-operated with Reinhard Gehlen, whose brother was a secretary to the SMOM (see below) in Rome. American intelligence (OSS at that time), under the command of Allen Dulles in Bern, co-operated with this operation, naming it RATLINES after their own escape route for downed Air Force crews in Europe in the war. And with Tito now in power, over the next few years bands of Krizari (Crusaders) were recruited by WEstern Intelligence from the Ustase who had fled into Austria and Italy - and sent into Yugoslavia on destabilising missions.

A significant post-war event that was to play a crucial role in both the 'Cold War' and Yugoslavia's future was the Greek civil war. The popular communist-led party, EAM - with its military wing, ELAS - would have assumed power in Greece in 1944 had not the British intervened militarily with two divisions, as a result of the (then) secret deal Churchill had made with Stalin in October '44: in effect, allowing the British a free hand in Greece in return for Russia having a freehand in Bulgaria and Romania. The subsequent guerrilla war waged by ELAS, with Tito's assistance, was held up as the 'bête noire' by Truman in his 'Doctrine Speech' in '47, calling for the West to rally to his crusade against the "un-American, communist way of life". In the following year, 1948, two crucial events occurred in Yugoslavia - now understandably in a parlous economic state: 1) Tito broke off relations with Stalin, and 2) America loaned Yugoslavia $1 billion. Disregarding any question of a causal line here (inasmuch as the chronology of the two events is not to hand), the consequences were that Tito stopped assisting the Greek rebellion - which collapsed as a result - and embarked on a debt-ridden course which eventually left to the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation. And America had now replaced Britain as the broker in the region.

Roman Gladiators

Furthermore, any historical review of the region would be inadequate if it did not include the role that religion in general, and the Roman Catholic Church in particular, has played in it - but in view of the schism that exists in the Church between the oligarchic 'Integralists' and the liberal 'Base Communities', it should be noted here that any reference/s to 'the church' is/are directed towards the former: the autocrats in the Vatican. The involvement of the church in the region was inevitable, given its geographical juxtaposition tom and historical association with Slovenia and Croatia - long regarded by the Church as a bastion against both the Orthodox Serbs (since Pope John 10th's crowning of Tomislav as King of Croatia in 925 AD) and later, the Muslim Ottomans.

One significant aspect of the Vatican/Yugoslav relationship during the early post-war period was that, whereas the polish government (a Russian satellite) had intervened far more in the internal affairs of the church than had Yugoslavia (which had broken off relations with Russia) the Vatican had adopted a far more intransigent attitude towards the latter (as exemplified by their opposition to Tito's agrarian reform, their stance over the Istria confrontation, and their ban on priests joining the long-established Priests' Associations) than towards the former. This could only have been a case of political opportunism aimed at Tito's comparative weakness. It was certainly not a case of religious principle.

Given their common, fervent anti-communist bias, it was also inevitable that there would be cooperation between Corporate America and the Vatican (as already referred to). Perhaps the most active Catholic group which so co-operated was the Venerable Sovereign Military & Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta, better known s the Knights of Malta (SMOM for short), an Order which, like the Vatican itself, is based in Rome and enjoys sovereign status, issuing its own passports and stamps. One of the SMOM's functions in the RATLINES operation was, in fact, the supplying of false passports to the Nazis on their way to sanctuary. Other examples of this co-operation in the post-war period were the setting up of the anti-communist propaganda radio station, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, joint ventures of the CIA (for funding) and SMOM members J. Peter Grace (W. R. Grace Corp.) and frank Shakespeare (CBS-TV, RIO and US Information Agency) - among others. Although membership of the Order was opened to Americans only in 1927, it is a measure of that country's influential standing that by the 1940s the American Cardinal Spellman held the post of 'Grand Protector' within the Order, whereas King Leopold of Belgium and Queen Wilhelmina of Holland were mere 'protectors' within their respective countries! To name but a few of its members, past and present, is to reveal its élitism and power. Juan Péron, CIA directors John McCone and William Casey, King Juan Carlos, ex-NATO Commander and ex-Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Joseph Kennedy - and Nazi Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, who negotiated the Hitler/Vatican Concordat of 1933.

This Concordat was an agreement that meant, in effect, that a government with an ostensibly strong anti-religious bias had taken the seemingly extraordinary step of imposing a church tithe on its populace! To understand this apparent paradox it is necessary to recall the ties that bound Germany to Rome for some eight centuries (926-1806) under the aegis of the Holy Roman Empire, with its succession of German kings. The unavoidable conclusion to be drawn here is that these ties were still alive in 1933, and the setting up of the puppet states of Slovenia and Croatia in 1941 are thus comprehensible. That these ties still exist today is attested to by the facts that 1) the Concordat is still in effect, and 2) since World War 2 the German political scene has been dominated by Christian Democratic (Catholic) parties. Indeed there can be no other rational explanation for Germany's extraordinary action on the 15th January 1992 when, contrary to the advice and warnings given them by the UN, EEC and Bosnia itself (Itzebegovic had even gone to Bonn in a vain attempt to dissuade them from taking this step) they recognised the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, thereby sanctioning the violent outbursts of nationalism that had occurred as a result of the earlier Declarations of Independence by those two autonomous members of the Yugoslav Federation. It was inevitable that the German action would lead to the Bosnian débacle - and it is difficult to believe that Germany was not aware of this. " by Alfred Mendes (2000)

Hugh Griffiths

... just too busy getting high on cat pee... pseudo-intellectual legalists with severe cases of erectile dysfunction...

Let me guess, Hugh Griffiths is just a pseudonym, your real name is Petar Lukovic?

Pop the cork, ol' mate, the SOB is behind bars... the hundred thousand can now rest in peace, the thousands of raped women and girls can breathe a sigh of relief, Sarajevans can celebrate again the end of siege and the millions who lost childhoods and every-day routines can put a smile on their faces and hope that the last of them will also be caught!

I'm happy he's arrested... It makes the loss of my own childhood a bit easier!

Cheers!