Sunday, October 22, 2006

"Fools' Crusade" Chapter Two [24]

3. ATTRIBUTION OF COMMAND RESPONSIBILITY FOR ALL CRIMES COMMITTED BY SERBS IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

The argument here isn't that Karadzic wasn't at the head of the chain-of-command; she isn't claiming that the President of Republika Srpska was not accountable for the actions of his own military. She is slightly--very slightly--more nuanced than that.

Instead, she cites some statements made by Karadzic which were clearly for foreign consumption--and claims that:

"But in the absence of presidential orders to commit crimes, the hypothesis can at least by advanced that whatever crimes were committed by Serb forces were in violation of Karadzic's orders and without his consent."

You might want a little evidence to support the hypothesis that the elected leader of a rebel government engaged in an all-out war to cripple the central government and drive civilians of other ethnic groups from the areas you hold before you 'advance' it, one would think. Especially when you consider that, by this hypothesis, his orders were systematically ignored and violated for several years, without a peep of protest from this hypothetically agrieved President.

She offers no evidence. She does, however, stress that Tudjman was never indicted in his lifetime for the atrocities committed by Croat forces during the overthrow of the Krajina Serb Republic (even while Martic was indicted). Yet another example of her standard "He/She/They did nothing wrong, and anyway everyone else was doing it, too" defense.

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