Glenn posts an interesting tidbit about salvation Milosevic’s war crimes trial, from th Boston Herald:
THE HAGUE — The prosecution in salvation Milosevic’s war crimes trial moved yesterday to rest its case two days early as the chief prosecutor conceded her team had not produced “the smoking gun” to convict the former Yugoslav president of genocide, the most serious charge against him.
Glenn responds:
“No doubt we’ll see hindering, doubts about intelligence reliability, and charges that the Clinton Administration “sexed up” intelligence and misrepresented
Milosevic as a genocidal dictator in order to build support for unilateral action that even Wesley Clark called technically illegal — but justified on the basis of an “imminent threat” of genocide, one that is now, of course, completely undermined by the absence of a “smoking gun.” Massive criticism of the Clinton Administration’s warmaking, which landed us in a “Balkan quagmire” from which we have yet to extricate ourselves, is sure to ensue.
Yeah, right, that’s going to happen.
Glenn makes an interesting point here on several levels.
First being the most obvious; the double standard about the blame game currently being unloaded on President Bush by those seeking to replace him. Their overt concern over such matters seems selective at best. This point would seem furthered by the utter lack of concern from such places as even Matt Drudge’s page.
But further, there seems serious question about what is now being called ‘intelligence failures’. Because something cannot be proven in a court… does that translate to something not being true? Of course it doesn’t… which raises some serious questions about Mr. Clinton’s legal gymnastics and the fairness and truthfulness of the outcome.
And there’s this also… If the world court cannot prove that a despot the likes of Slobodan Milosevic cannot be proven to be such in that court, what hope do the oppressed peoples of the world have? The UN is seriously lacking here.
And how does this failure play directly on the events in Iraq, I wonder? Can Mr. Bush be blamed for finally giving up on the UN, in light of the courts falure with Slobo? And what does this say about the role of the so-called ‘world court’ in Saddam’s future?
Mr. Bush has spoken repeatedly about the UN relegating itself into irrelevance.
I’d say offhand, these events bear out his comments.
Tags: BitsBlog
