As seems to be true with much you read in
the newspaper, the exact opposite of
what front pages proclaim is closer to the truth. Milosevic
being hustled onto a plane to the Hague wasn't a
vindication of international law. It
was the very repudiation of the whole idea that
international law should apply to all, and that no one --
not Sharon, or Clinton or Blair --
stands above it.
Mr. Milosevic has been extradited to a
court that was largely established,
and is controlled, by the same countries that openly
violated international law when they bombed Yugoslavia
for 78 days in 1999. They will never
have to answer for their breaches of international
law, or for war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in reducing the civilian and
economic infrastructure of Yugoslavia to rubble, and
neither for the killing of hundreds, if not thousands, of
Yugoslav civilians. Nor for the
permanent disabilities of thousands of others.
The tribunal is the creation of the UN
Security Council, whose members,
including the US and Britain, the principal NATO countries,
enjoy immunity from prosecution, by
virtue of the vetoes they wield on the
Security Council, and by virtue of the fact that they've
appointed the prosecution staff. The
proposed International Criminal Court, which
would make prosecution of all leaders possible by
removing the odious principle that
Security Council members stand above the law, has been
blocked by the US. Some are above international law,
others are not. Washington likes it
that way.
Despite the strong propagandistic strain
that snakes its way through
descriptions of Milosevic as a strongman, as heartless, as
the "butcher of Belgrade," the case
for prosecuting NATO's leaders is stronger than
the case against Milosevic. The tribunal hasn't indicted
Milosevic on genocide charges. All the
bodies NATO darkly warned of, were never
found. Instead, he's been indicted for the murder of 391
people. By contrast, the most
conservative estimate of the number of Yugoslav
civilians killed by NATO bombs -- made by Human Rights
Watch -- is 500. Other groups put the
number higher, in the order of 2,000. And that
doesn't include the thousands who will eventually die
from cancers induced by the terrible
environmental catastrophe NATO's air assault
wrought. As writer Diana Johnstone put it, "American
officials are quoted as urging Serbian
authorities to keep searching for some crime
committed by Milosevic, since 'he's certainly guilty of
something...' No such frantic search
is necessary to find the guilt of NATO leaders.
They launched an illegal war. They targeted civilian
infrastructure, used toxic weapons. "
The strategic forecasting group, Stratfor,
warns that the tribunal has set the
bar so low on prosecution of leaders, that it's now "easy for
international courts to try a variety of foreign leaders
and military officers, including
Americans." Gasp! Not to worry overly much,
Stratfor quickly adds, "No court in the world has the
ability to coerce China, Russia or the
United States to hand over a current of former
leader."
Law hardly matters here, a point Stratfor
acknowledges, if not the media.
All that matters is who has more power. NATO brazenly tramples
international law to attack Yugoslavia because it can get
away with it, and the Serb Prime
Minister, Zoran Zjindjic, brazenly ignores the
federal parliament and the Constitutional Court to
transfer Milosevic to the Hague.
Djindjic's actions are as outrageous, it's been pointed out,
as the governor of Georgia turning over a prisoner to an
international tribunal in defiance of
the President, the Congress, and the Supreme
Court. There's no rule of law here.
It's hard not to conclude that the press
doesn't exist to serve a propaganda
function, when blatant violations of the rule of law are
held up as vindications of the rule of law, or when, in
another part of the world, Goliaths,
with helicopter gunships and jet fighters and
bulldozers, become make-believe Davids, threatened
by make-believe Goliaths hurling
stones. Or when who's called a rebel and who's called
a terrorist depends entirely on power politics, and who
spoon feeds an ever complicit media
their own self serving version of
events.
One newspaper headline astonishingly
missed the mark by proclaiming:
Milosevic is not "above the law.' Of that, there was never any
doubt. The question is, Is NATO above
the law? Sadly, there's little doubt
about that either -- expect in newspapers.
