The world is full of killing. As I write this, one thousand people die violent deaths every day in wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, the Mexican drug war, Sudanese nomadic conflicts, the South Yemen insurgency.
But the reasons for the arrest of former Serbian leader Ratko Mladic last week were different from the killing described above. The massacres ordered by the Serb leader were not the result of one hostile force being pitted against another in a struggle of endurance and wills. Instead, the campaigns of the Serb were the deliberate actions of a national group that had taken upon itself the extinction of its rival neighbors. Such a group moves with industrialized precision, and acts with no pity, no imagination, no soul, and no regret. One immediately thinks of Hitler’s slaughter of the Jews or his wholesale murder of Soviet soldiers and prisoners.
In such cases it’s murder done for the degraded relish of murder. Ratko Mladic was thus the creature of pillage, rape and slaughter. He was a man without tenderness, without honor, without scruples or remorse. He was an engine for the infliction of pain. You cannot turn away from such a man because he is too terrible to forgive. Such a man has to be looked at and condemned in hatred for what he has done.
The crimes of Ratko Mladic unfolded in this way. In 1994, Clinton had just been defeated in major congressional elections, dogged by disgrace, when a fresh disaster was beginning to build up in the Balkans. As I wrote in my book, Clinton’s Secret Wars, in that month, a new destructive fury had begun again to sweep through the region. Within the allied alliance, all was still drift and appeasement. Even the United States had declared that NATO unity was more important than the rights and safety of Bosnia, and former State Dept. official Tony Lake had said in a draft memo that “since the stick of military pressure is no longer viable, it should be abandoned.”
Now, thanks to Ratko Mladic, the month of May saw Sarajevo experience its bloodiest fighting in 15 months. Messages of alarm began to arrive at the White House Situation room. Day by day, hour by hour, affairs grew worse. NATO and the United Nations exhibited their usual withdrawal into paralyzed indecision. They looked on while the Bosnian Serbs, who had a year before been forced by the United Nations to withdraw their tanks and cannons and mortars from the mountains and ridges surrounding the city, stood helplessly by when the Serbs suddenly came and took them back.
On May 24, Mladic used his new arsenal to unleash a merciless barrage, smashing the city with over 3,000 shells in violation of a ban the year before. In Sarajevo, a Serb shell had careened into a crowded café packed solidly with students, killing 71 people, most of whom were under 25, and wounding 250.
The UN was not only impotent, it was cowardly, and unfortunately the Serb war against the Bosnian Muslims had reached a new turning point. Mladic knew he did not have enough resources to fight a long and indefinite war and he knew he needed to conquer the Croats and Bosnian Muslims in the spring of 1995. At the top of his list of targets were the six Muslim enclaves.
By July Mladic’s forces had thrown a noose around the city of Srebrenica. The city fell on July 11, with one Dutch outpost after another taken by the Serbs. The International Red Cross (INRC) had coordinated the deportation of refugees from the city by convoy on July 12 and 13. As these had arrived, the INRC had noticed that 90 percent of the arrivals were women, children and elderly men. This was disconcerting and puzzling since this meant roughly between 10,000 to 20,000 people, mainly young males, were missing from the roles.
There was a stiffening gale of disquieting reports of mass atrocity, but there was no evidence. Then there was initial corroboration of mass executions, thanks to a man who had barely escaped being killed himself. At Tuzla in Bosnia, there were teams of U.N. workers interviewing Srebrenica refugees, and among them was a young Norwegian woman, Tune Bringa, who was taking down reported incidents of rape, stories of transport buses being stopped and young women being taken off and violated. Suddenly a man in his early forties with a bloody head appeared, shouting frantically, “I need to speak to the United Nations! I need to speak to the United Nations!” An excited crowd formed around him instantly asking, “Have you seen my brother?” Or, “Have you seen my husband?” The man shouldered them aside and yelled again, “I need to speak to the United Nations!” Bringa responded immediately. She took the man aside, and saw that a bullet had grazed his head. Speaking fluent Bosnian, she took down his story.
He had been in the stadium at Potocari when he heard Mladic taunting the Muslim men, “Where is your Alija now?” referring to the Bosnian president. He had then been taken to a school where he spent a horrific night watching Serb soldiers as they kept pulling men off trucks. He described hearing gunfire followed by screams. He was then taken by a truck to a field near Konjevic Polje where he was forced off and watched in horror as a line of men ahead of him were machine-gunned in front of an open pit of raw earth. He was next in line, and as the Serbs opened fire, he fell on top of the dead bodies in the pit. Rushing to complete their work, the soldiers ordered another line of captives forward. They were shot and their corpses covered the body of the survivor. He lay still until dark, rigid with terror at the thought that Serb bulldozers might rumble in and bury him alive in the corpse-filled pit. When the Serbs finally left, he cried out, “Is anyone still alive?” Someone was. A 17-year-old boy answered, and together they fled through the woods to Tuzla.
The man with the bullet graze on his temple showed Bringa the burn marks where his wrists had been tied with rope.
Bringa immediately understood the significance of the man’s account. In a distraught voice, she described what she had heard and asked a State Dept. official what to do, “This doesn’t belong in some drawer somewhere!” she said.
The assembled accounts were horrifying. At a place called Nova Kasaba, northwest of the city, Muslim males ranging from teenagers to men in their 60s and 70s, had had their hands bounds behind their backs, were lined up and then shot. Serbs moved among them putting bullets into anybody they thought might harbor life. One of the Serb executioners had handed his rifle to the horrified driver of a bus. “You kill one,” he ordered. Everyone was to be implicated.
For hours and hours, as more and more buses arrived, Muslim men were slaughtered like deer.
That is Ratko Mladic’s legacy written in blood and murder. I hope he likes the smell of it.
By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars
(Thanks to Tune Bringa and former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith.)
Another war we should have never gotten involved in that had absolutely nothing to do with our interests. Ok great so they finally got Ratko Mladic. What no mention about the convictions of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac the Croatian Generals? I know it those bad, bad, terrible nasty rotten Serbs and their war crimes....
Peter Galbraith and Richard Holbrooke(RIP) were terrible envoys in this one sided affair. Lets not mention our former nemesis, UBL and Kosovo. Kosovo another one sided affair, thanks to former Congressman Joseph DioGuardi and his lobbying of his buddies on Capitol Hill.
Like I said another war of choice that we should have stayed away from and let the Europeans do their own dirty work.
Oh yeah, one guy they should bring to the Hague... Wes Clark... The Supreme Being... talking about bombing civilians....
What bullshit....
Posted by: Jake | 30 May 2011 at 10:42 PM
Well Jake I think you miss the point and not surprised since most of the EU citizens and residents do also. What do they miss? That the WEST largely committed suicide between 1914 and 1918 and continues to make sure that suicide continues--just in slow motion!
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 31 May 2011 at 01:06 AM
William Cumming,
I did not miss that point at all. To bad Serbia's Great War like most wars, did not end wars. However and matter of fact, I watched that continuation of suicide up front, close and very personal...
If there is one person I hold responsible for the continuation of this suicide besides Bill Clinton, its Marie Jana Korbelová...
Posted by: Jake | 31 May 2011 at 07:39 AM
Mr. Sales post is a necessary reminder of the all too often forgotten dark side of the human nature, and the excesses in which tribal nationalism must manifest itself.
There is no justification or excuse for what Ratko Mladic did. Ratko Mladic is a mass murderer and it is good he finally has to face a trial for what he did. And Jake, what was that? 'Terrible nasty rotten Serbs and their war crimes'? Yes indeed.
The only point - and it is so trivial that it shouldn't need mentioning - is that Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac are butchers, too. Markac was sentenced to 18 years by the ICTY in April 2011. On April 15 2011, Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment. Mladic will have them to keep his company.
Blaming the UN and NATO is one thing, and fail they did, but it was still Ratko Mladic and his thugs who committed the massacres, war crimes and other outrages against humanity. As for the guilt of the bystanders ...
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3096189,00.html
I think the Srebrenica operation is formidable example of how to not task troops and about leadership and grave policy failures of the UN mission, with the known, tragic consequences. More here:
http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/bosnia/guilty.html
Posted by: confusedponderer | 31 May 2011 at 08:52 AM
"Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelová (Czech pronunciation: [ˈmarɪjɛ ˈjana ˈkorbɛlovaː]) in the Smíchov district of Prague, Czechoslovakia."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright
Posted by: WILL | 31 May 2011 at 10:17 AM
confusedponderer,
I make no supportive case for Ratko Mladic. He was a butcher and deserves a long jail sentence. Yes, I do not believe in the death penalty, but Mladic needs to go to jail and share a cell with his former enemies.
Now saying that, I get annoyed with the constant focus on Serbian war crimes as if they were the truly and the only big bad boys in that fight. There is and still is, not enough focus on the Croatian and Albanian atrocities and these are not trivial matters. Simple fact, there was plenty of killings going around for a very long, long time and no one cared to do squat about any of it.
Our Kosovo campaign had zero and I will say this again, ZERO...to do with stopping genocide. That is truly bullshit. We could have forced a ton of crap at the UN to stop that. The UN, NATO and yes the United States failed terribly to protect "ALL" not just a few. The bombing campaign of Belgrade was nothing short of crimes against humanity. There was no reason for it what so ever.
Because Mladic was a butcher does not mean we needed to become one either. Remember, whether or not it was done under the NATO umbrella, we bombed Belgrade back to the stone age. To add insult to injury, just the mere thought of the Luftwaffe taking flight over Belgrade again was a slap at all Serbs ( by the way, I am not Serbian) who remember what they did for us during WWII. Lets not mention that we closed our eyes to what the Albanians and Croatians were doing while we were bombing civilians. We are just a culpable as both the UN and NATO.
Albright had a bug up her butt about the Serbs and Europeans were nothing less than cowards to take the lead. So they needed a proxy and found one right here in the States. This was about forcing a Country to submit to the European plans for unity not stopping genocide.
I had front row seats to this boondoggle and lets say interesting acquaintances who were very involved at the highest levels of Serbian government at the time and even afterwards.
This was nothing more than one of our worse moments in history.
Of course we tested and found out how really invisible our F117s were and just how some of our tomahawks could be diverted to corn fields by setting off commercial microwave transmitters. Not to mention how screwed up our strike database was.
Another choice war for political and economic gain.
Posted by: Jake | 31 May 2011 at 10:44 AM
how little we remember of our common Christian history!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noon_bell
" During the siege [Turkish siege of Belgrade], Pope Callixtus III ordered the bells of every church to be rung every day at noon, as a call for believers to pray for the defenders of the city. However, in many countries (like England and Spanish Kingdoms), news of the victory arrived before the order, and the ringing of the church bells at noon thus transformed into a commemoration of the victory."
Posted by: WILL | 31 May 2011 at 01:10 PM
http://www.gregoryclark.net/jt/page81/page81.html
Posted by: YT | 31 May 2011 at 02:41 PM
I don't think that it was about European plans for European unity. Russophobia characterises both Albright and in particular Zbigniew Brzezinski (of The Grand Chessboard fame). It was more probably about US grand strategic plans to roll back Russian influence in Europe and to control energy flows from Central Asia and in(to) Europe, in which Europeans eagerly collaborated - and if that meant to to shatter Yugoslavia, so be it. The final act in this travesty was the US recognition as a state of the frivolity that is Kosovo under Bush.
With Kosovo I really can't say - was it created because the opportunity presented itself or because it was planned like that right from the start? Whatever the motives, the result is clear:
Camp Bondsteel, probably coincidentally guarding a major pipeline route, the planned Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil (AMBO) pipeline, which, once built, will transport the Caspian oil from Bulgaria to Albania via Macedonia. Geostrategy, or Geo-Strategery at least.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/campbondsteel/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMBO_pipeline
Perish the thought, but I can't help thinking that a Serbian government (close to Russia with cultural, language and religious ties) may not have agreed to a major US base on Serbian territory. Just thinking, mind you.
Posted by: confusedponderer | 31 May 2011 at 03:32 PM
I'm afraid Jakes comments miss the mark because he fails to take account of the other player in this tragedy -Russia.
As my Father pointed out in 1994, the Western response to the 1914 outbreak of Pan-Slavism in the Balkans resulted in Sixteen million deaths. NATO, and especially Germany are acutely aware of this and of course the World War Two replay.
..And that was even without Russias constant "reminders", sorry threats, about what it might do if Germany again attempted to inconvenience the Serbs in their religious and racist crusade.
No Jake, NATO was not "cowardly", they just have direct, personal and painful experience of the consequences of meddling with Pan-Slavism in the Balkans.
My Father, a cultured man born in Bamberg in 1918, summed this attitude up in Four words at the time; "let them kill each other."
May all the Balkans leaders and their generals rot in hell.
Posted by: Walrus | 31 May 2011 at 04:58 PM
...and neatly shot myself in the foot - make that Five words, not Four.
Posted by: Walrus | 31 May 2011 at 05:00 PM
A bit absurd to compare a strategic bombing campaign that may have killed a few dozen (hundreds) of civilians targeting the clear dominant aggressor in this war, against the madness of 8,000 civilians taken out and slaughtered in a few days and 10,000 killed in the 4 year siege of Sarajevo.
Were the Serbs the only "bad" guys? No, they were the big boys-the best equipped. And the Europeans have a history of not taking care of their dirty little messes until it becomes a huge ugly mess.
So sorry if the cafe experience was rough in Belgrade, it was worth the sacrifice if it prevented another European brawl.
Posted by: Marcus | 31 May 2011 at 10:04 PM
Walrus...
I missed nothing and yes the Russians (who do you think supplied the intel on how to SAM trap the F117s and how to divert the tomahawks)as well as the Chinese had their special interests at stake. That was the problem, way to many countries had a stake in this fight.
NATO was indeed cowardly, bombing civilian targets is not honorable in any war. I have seven hours of bomb damage on tape that was requested by me and shot by a American friend who flew into Budapest and drove to Belgrade. There was no call for any of that and we should all be ashamed.
I am sorry people feel the way you do about all Balkan leaders and their Generals. One of those acquaintances of mine that I mentioned before? That was none other than Vojislav Kostunica. I think he was truly a honest and noble Balkan Leader.
Posted by: Jake | 31 May 2011 at 10:04 PM
Vojislav Kostunica - Yeah, he's a gem....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7285410.stm
A giant among men.
But then, who you going to believe? The entire Western world, or Jake, who says he met somebody once?
Posted by: herb | 01 June 2011 at 12:54 AM
Jake:
"NATO was indeed cowardly, bombing civilian targets is not honorable in any war. "
Jake, might you like to clarify your statement to the owner of this website?
Posted by: Walrus | 01 June 2011 at 02:16 AM
"A bit absurd to compare a strategic bombing campaign that may have killed a few dozen (hundreds) of civilians targeting the clear dominant aggressor in this war, against the madness of 8,000 civilians taken out and slaughtered in a few days and 10,000 killed in the 4 year siege of Sarajevo."
"So sorry if the cafe experience was rough in Belgrade, it was worth the sacrifice if it prevented another European brawl."
Marcus.... A few dozen or hundred civilians?... Its was worth the sacrifice if it prevented another European brawl?... Strategic bombing? Cafe Experience? ...
Nothing like consoling a friend here in the states crying while his wife and child were being bombed in Belgrade by us.... Cafe experience? Very sad and very, very uniformed statements by you Marcus. Not even the Neocons supported that war... Amazing eh?
Oh by the way Marcus, killing is easy, you do not need to be the best equipped. Just ask the KLA... You know the KLA? That wonderful Albanian social services organization we labeled a terrorist organization and then suddenly de-listed it and supported it just prior to the start of the bombing.
Oh yes I forgot.. Remember that guy we just waxed? You know, whats his name? Bin Laden.... Yes Marcus he also helped funded and trained the KLA....
Talk about coming full circle. Next time your at a cafe remember that....
Posted by: Jake | 01 June 2011 at 07:19 AM
herb...
Easy to criticize someone by a slanted media report. Here is the funny part of that report... "Political relations at home have also been rocky. As president, his stance on Milosevic's extradition put him at odds with Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, until the latter's assassination in 2003."
Rocky? Yes the man is a nationalist. What? We can have nationalistic feelings about the USA, but no one else can about their own country? Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic? Yes Djindjic, the serbian mobs man.... Ever wonder who's jet he was flying all over the planet on? Interesting no mention of Djindjic's association with the mob .... good press report....
herb, lets just say, I have a little bit better than a common frame of reference on this issue and Kostunica...
Walrus,
I have no apologies to make to Colonel Lang. None of my remarks were directed to him or about him or his capabilities. Nor did he have anything to do with NATO on that event. I do however to this day, hold Wes Clark responsible for NATO's stupidity. Not anyone else...
Posted by: Jake | 01 June 2011 at 09:09 AM
By the way herb... Kostunica has had his problems in office, and we did not help him much...bet you could not do much better in his shoes....
Posted by: Jake | 01 June 2011 at 09:23 AM
"Nothing like consoling a friend here in the states crying while his wife and child were being bombed in Belgrade by us.... Cafe experience? Very sad and very, very uniformed statements by you Marcus. Not even the Neocons supported that war... Amazing eh?"
Very sorry about your past anxiety over your potential loss. This is not the purpose of this site, to console imaginary friends.
The Neocons did not support this war? By Neocon logic that would give it more legitimacy.
Bin Laden supported the KLA? We supported Bin Laden.
Its a crazy mixed up world, but at least we avoided another European conflagration-like 40 million corpses and 40 shattered countries.
Posted by: Marcus | 01 June 2011 at 09:34 AM
Marcus...
Imaginary friends? Thank you for sharing your insult with me..
40 Million Corpses and 40 shattered countries? Right Marcus...40 million...40 countries.. Let see, total human losses WWII, some 78 Million. Your saying that the Balkan war would have done almost as much damage? Nice distortion. The Neocons? No Marcus not to give the action any more legitimacy, but this action was so lopsided and politically screwed up that even the Neocons lobbied against it...
Yes, we unwittingly supported Bin Laden to some degree. The entire affair was a disaster from the get go...
Posted by: Jake | 01 June 2011 at 10:38 AM
Jake, we have invested enough in the Balkans since 1914.
I could care less about the occupants. Their history of vicious, petty and lethal feuding goes back centuries.
We even had to stamp very hard on Yugoslav immigrant organisations in Australia when they attempted to import their unique brand of hatred for each other here.
Posted by: Walrus | 01 June 2011 at 01:49 PM
Well Jake I never feel sorry for a man (or woman) with a cause! What exactly is or are yours?
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 01 June 2011 at 04:18 PM
I’m very glad that this war criminal was caught, and there is NO disputing that the Serbian government wanted to get its hands on him. The capture of war criminals has been something that democratic, pro-Europe Serbia has been at for a few years now.
Let me emphasis this: There are very few people left in Serbia that celebrate these war criminals and their crimes!
This removes a major barrier for Serbia’s membership to the European Union, something that Serbia has worked hard for and earned. Good for Serbia and Serbia will be a great EU member!
Posted by: Louise M | 02 June 2011 at 10:51 AM
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/07/04/bill-kristol-must-resign/
Kristol led many neocons who supported the attack on Serbia. They feared a Great Russian-Serbian Orthodox clerical authoritarian axis. They also wanted to appease Islam to take the pressure off Israel, if possible.
Posted by: Ken Hoop | 02 June 2011 at 06:04 PM