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.
