Indict All the Liars

Indict All the Liars?

Milosevic hadn't started all the problems. These began with a separatist movment by Albanians, before Milosevic was nationally known. Nor did "Milosevic and Milosevic alone" reject the NATO backed Rambaullet treaty. This was rejected by 100% of the Serbia Parliament, including Milosevic's faction and Milosevic's foes' factions. Milosevic didn't even hold a majority in the Parliament. He had to rely on a more radical party to unite with his, to receive a plurality. This party, in fact, had opposed the Dayton Accord backed by Milosevic. The Dayton Accord. This is the treaty that recently won Clinton a peace prize. The same treaty that Milosevic had a lot to do with, but who's name has been eradicated from any mention of now. Bad people don't do good things, that's the message.

Milosevic is no saint, but he's hardly the Nazi-like creature painted by opposition western leaders. He's more like an old-line Communist, certainly no worse a person than your average Chinese leader, and we seem to be willing enough to shake hands with them.

Were there massacres? Yes. But there was a civil war too, and wars fought even by good people tend to bring on a few massacres. Just ask Lt. Calley, or perhaps Bob Kerry. Were the Serb's any different?

News reports placed Serb troops as highly disciplined. But there were paramilitaries, not so disciplined and rather heavy handed. Is this reason enough to mount an all out attack on both military and civilian apparatus? Reason enough to drop human maiming cluster bombs so close to a crowded market that some may happen to fall there and kill people? Or reason enough to bomb an auto plant full of civilian auto workers, some of whom are building military vehicles for the highly disciplined Serbian soldiers? Is it? I don't know, I'm asking.

What do we say of a military force that releases a tape of a pilot who had nothing to do with an incident that they one week earlier claimed he had something to with? This was about the accidental firing on a group of refugees, the United States meaning to prove that it was accidental, in a single attack, even though repeated attacks over a long period of time was what every journalist in the region had observed. And what of a tape speeded up 3X to show just how fast a train full of passengers had been moving before it was destroyed by US pilots? Could you blame the United States for simply overlooking the faster than normal video? Yes may be the right answer.

And there is the TV studio, a civilian target purposely bombed because Milosevic was broadcasting "lies". Not Nato's lies, but his own lies.

On the day the studio was attacked the foreign minister had been asked to be there for a satellite chat with Tony Blair, that's right, Tony Blair. He learned of the attack and station's destruction on his way to it. Did Mr. Blair simply forget they were setting up the controversial target or was this actually a "clever" way to take out the defense minister? Invite him to talk and ambush him on the way? Nato could have pointed out that the attack was launched nearly a full hour before the start of the CNN Larry King interview, but alternately, it might be noted that a Nato bomb dropping through a window of the interviewee during a prime time TV show would appear to be bad manners, Mr Blair there and all, watching his opponent turn from a speaking human being into a screen of background noise and wiggly lines. Whoops. Lost that signal.

If Milosevic is to be indicted for war crimes is it not unreasonable to at the least, consider indicting Nato's top liars also, Mr's Blair and Clinton?

--Editor June 28, 2001 Back to News