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Hague Tribunal Exonerates Slobodan Milosevic Again

by Andy Wilcoxson, via Strategic Culture

Eleven years after his death, a second trial chamber at the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague has concluded that Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

More than eleven years after his death, a second trial chamber at the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague has concluded that former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible for war crimes committed in Bosnia where the worst atrocities associated with the break-up of Yugoslavia took place.
Buried in a footnote deep in the fourth volume of the judgment against Bosnian-Serb General Ratko Mladic the judges unanimously conclude that “The evidence received by the trial chamber did not show that Slobodan Milosevic, Jovica Stanisic, Franko Simatovic, Zeljko Raznatovic, or Vojislav Seselj participated in the realization of the common criminal objective” to establish an ethnically-homogenous Bosnian-Serb entity through the commission of crimes alleged in the indictment.[1]
This is an important admission because practically the entire Western press corps and virtually every political leader in every Western country has spent the last 25 years telling us that Slobodan Milosevic was a genocidal monster cut from the same cloth as Adolf Hitler. We were told that he was the “Butcher of the Balkans,” but there was never any evidence to support those accusations. We were lied to in order to justify economic sanctions and NATO military aggression against the people of Serbia – just like they lied to us to justify the Iraq war.
This is the second successive trial chamber at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to conclude that Slobodan Milosevic was not guilty of the most serious crimes he was accused of.
Last year, the Radovan Karadzic trial chamber also concluded that “the Chamber is not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan” to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb claimed territory.[2]
The Tribunal has done nothing to publicize these findings despite the fact that Slobodan Milosevic was accused of 66 counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the Tribunal.
Milosevic died in the Tribunal’s custody before the conclusion of his own trial. He was found dead in his cell after suffering a heart attack in the UN Detention Unit two weeks after the Tribunal denied his request for provisional release so that he could have heart surgery that would have saved his life.[3]
Dr. Leo Bokeria, the coronary specialist who would have overseen Milosevic’s treatment at the Bakulev Medical Center, said: “If Milosevic was taken to any specialized Russian hospital, the more so to such a stationary medical institution as ours, he would have been subjected to coronographic examination, two stents would be made, and he would have lived for many long years to come. A person has died in our contemporary epoch, when all the methods to treat him were available and the proposals of our country and the reputation of our medicine were ignored. As a result, they did what they wanted to do.”[4]
Less than 72 hours before his death, Milosevic’s lawyer delivered a letter to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which Milosevic expressed fear that he was being poisoned.[5]
The Tribunal’s inquiry into Milosevic’s death confirmed that Rifampicin (an unprescribed drug that would have compromised the efficacy of his high blood pressure medication) was found in one of his blood tests, but that that he was not informed of the results until months later “because of the difficult legal position in which Dr. Falke (the Tribunal’s chief medical officer) found himself by virtue of the Dutch legal provisions concerning medical confidentiality.”[6]
There are no Dutch legal provisions that prohibit a doctor from telling a patient the result of their own blood test, and U.S. diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks show that the Tribunal had zero regard for medical confidentiality laws when they gave detailed information about Slobodan Milosevic’s health and medical records to personnel at the US embassy in The Hague without his consent.[7]
Milosevic’s trial had been going badly for the prosecution. It was glaringly obvious to any fair-minded observer that he was innocent of the crimes he was accused of. James Bissett, Canada’s former ambassador to Yugoslavia, said Milosevic’s trial “had taken on all the characteristics of a Stalinist show trial.” George Kenny, who manned the U.S. State Department’s Yugoslavia desk, also denounced the Milosevic trial proceedings as “inherently unfair, amounting to little more than a political show trial”.[8]
The trial was a public relations disaster for the Tribunal. Midway through the Prosecution’s case, the London Times published an article smearing Slobodan Milosevic’s wife and lamenting the fact that “One of the ironies of Slobodan’s trial is that it has bolstered his popularity. Hours of airtime, courtesy of the televised trial, have made many Serbs fall in love with him again.”[9]
While the trial enhanced Milosevic’s favorability, it destroyed the Tribunal’s credibility with the Serbian public. The Serbian public had been watching the trial on television, and when the Serbian Human Rights Ministry conducted a public opinion poll three years into the trial it found that “three quarters of Serbian citizens believe that The Hague Tribunal is a political rather than a legal institution.”[10]
Tim Judah, a well-known anti-Milosevic journalist and author, was dismayed as he watched the trial unfold. He wrote that “the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague is going horribly wrong, turning him in the eyes of the public from a villain charged with war crimes into a Serbian hero.”[11]
By late 2005, Milosevic’s detractors wanted the live broadcasts of the trial yanked off the air because it was not having the political effect that they had hoped it would. Political analyst Daniel Cveticanin wrote, “It seems that the coverage benefits more those it was supposed to expose than the Serbian public. [The] freedom-loving and democratic intentions of the live coverage have not produced [the] planned effects.”[12]
Milosevic’s supporters, on the other hand, were emphatic. They wanted the live broadcasts to continue because they knew he was innocent and they wanted the public to see that for themselves.[13]
Slobodan Milosevic’s exoneration, by the same Tribunal that killed him eleven years ago, is cold comfort for the people of Serbia. The Serbian people endured years of economic sanctions and a NATO bombing campaign against their country because of the unfounded allegations against their president.
Although the Tribunal eventually admitted that it didn’t have evidence against Slobodan Milosevic, its disreputable behavior should make you think twice before accepting any of its other findings.
NOTES:
[1] ICTY, Mladic Judgment, Vol. IV, 22 November 2017, Pg. 2090, Footnote 15357
http://www.icty.org/x/cases/mladic/tjug/en/171122-4of5_1.pdf[2] ICTY, Karadzic Judgment, 24 March 2016, Para. 3460

Click to access 160324_judgement.pdf

[3] ICTY Case No. IT-02-54 Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevic, Decision on Assigned Counsel Request for Provisional Release, February 23, 2006
[4] “Milosevic Could Be Saved if He Was Treated in Russia – Bokeria,” Itar-Tass (Russia), March 15, 2006
[5] Text of Slobodan Milosevic’s Letter to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/sm030806.htm
[6] Judge Kevin Parker (Vice-President of the ICTY), Report to the President of the ICTY: Death of Slobodan Milosevic, May 2006; ¶ 31, 76

Click to access parkerreport.pdf

[7] U.S. State Dept. Cable #03THEHAGUE2835_a, “ICTY: An Inside Look Into Milosevic’s Health and Support Network”
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/03THEHAGUE2835_a.html
[8] “Milosevic trial delayed as witnesses refuse to testify,” The Irish Times, September 18, 2004
[9] “Listening to Lady Macbeth,” Sunday Times (London), January 5, 2003
[10] “Public Opinion Firmly Against Hague,” B92 News (Belgrade), August 2, 2004
[11] Tim Judah, “Serbia Backs Milosevic in Trial by TV – Alarm as Former President Gains the Upper Hand in War Crimes Tribunal,” The Observer (London), March 3, 2002
[12] “Debate Opens in Serbia Over Live Coverage of Milosevic War Crimes Trial,” Associated Press Worldstream, September 22, 2005
[13] “Serbian NGO Opposes Decision to Drop Live Broadcast of Milosevic Trial,” BBC Monitoring International Reports, October 8, 2003; Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1300 gmt 8 Oct 03; See Also: “Serbia: Milosevic Sympathisers Protest Inadequate Coverage of Trial,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, June 10, 2002; Source: RTS TV, Belgrade, in Serbo-Croat 1730 gmt 10 Jun 02


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falcemartello
falcemartello
Dec 11, 2017 1:14 AM

Gee how this sounds so familiar. Post WWII Nuremberg show trials anyone. How the exceptional west just luv to pin indiscriminate pre-meditated war crimes on every one else but themselves. Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan ,Yemen and Syria . Who will be held accountable for those crimes. Hell these vile creatures are still trying to pursue Dr Assad for their fabricated gassing of his own people when the paper trail of arms gas and logistics leads back to the anglo-zionist first then NATO/Pax -Americana. Video footage of the IDF aiding and abetting the Takfiri’s hell their is an article just today from Al Masdar news stating categorically that the IDF is aiding the fake FSA in their fight in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp to fight against the ISRAELI SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE aka ISIS Daesh . Lorant Fabius then Foreign Minister of the Sarkozy regime actually admitted on live french TV the UK offer post Qadaffi assisination if he was interested in regime change operations in Syria France 24 2013 interview. Hague trials for the anglo-zionist /US/Canad/Australian politicos Israel the untouchables ? I say not UN anglo-zionist construct think about it post it’s inception voila new colonial outpost tenth Crusade on the Holy land and the birth of the supremacist ,racist ,fascist state of Rothschild (ISRAEL).

Jimmy
Jimmy
Dec 10, 2017 6:40 PM

“has concluded that Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible”
“The evidence received by the trial chamber did not show”
You seem to think that these sentences mean the same thing. They don’t.

Admin
Admin
Dec 10, 2017 8:38 PM
Reply to  Jimmy

What do you think the statement does mean? If the “evidence does not show” his guilt, then by what form of magic or intuition do we continue to know he was guilty?

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 10, 2017 10:34 PM
Reply to  Admin

I think the paradox for you is that on the one hand you portray the ICTY as a kangaroo court (a position I agree with) then on the other suggest we should accept its ruling as being the final word on Mislovics role in the conflict (a position I disagree with).
Can you clarify, please – do you regard the ITCY as a kangaroo court or credible legal authority?

Admin
Admin
Dec 10, 2017 11:08 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Sorry, I’m not going to engage any further with a commenter who simply plays with words and dodges any responsibility for factual accuracy. You’re free to take up our bandwidth as long as you like, but you won’t take up any more of my time.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 11, 2017 6:12 AM
Reply to  Admin

I have posted what I regard as a credible source claiming horrific sex crimes were committed during the conflict in Bosnia, which you dismiss as ‘unsourced allegations’.
This implies either the authors (of a fairly detailed report) or the women themselves lack credibility – pretty disprespectful in my opinion (towards those directly affected).
Your response above tells me that you cannot escape an internal logic fail with regard to the credibility of the ICTY – obviously if the ICTY is a ‘kangaroo court’ (which seemed to be the concensus over the last few days) then we must be careful how any rulings are interpreted.
I have never argued that NATO were not out to get Milosevic (in pursuance of their own post war agenda), but I do not buy into the idea of him as a later day Chauncey Gardiner strolling round a burning city mumbling to himself, ‘how on earth did all this happen’ – in other words NATO wrongs do not automatically mean the target of their attack is right.
Your lack of curiosity about Milosevics main rival, Ivan Stambolic, abducted before being found with 2 bullets in the back of his head is also telling.
I mean can imagine if Thatch’ or Blair were found in similar cirumstances – we would never hear the last of it.

BigB
BigB
Dec 11, 2017 9:03 AM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Harry: there is a logic gap in your analysis. The illegal kangaroo tribunal was set up to immortalize the NATO narrative as official history? As so much of this is justified on their characterization of Milosevic: why did they fail to use adjudicated facts and admissable hearsay evidence to frame him as guilty? Because there was no case to answer? The fact it was a kangaroo court makes his double exoneration even MORE credible???

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 24, 2017 4:30 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

I think the point being made, which seems lost on you, is that despite very good evidence the court was biased against Milosevic and hoped to find him guilty,, it was still unable to do so. Ordinarily this serves to enhance the credibility of the point being made.

Alan
Alan
Dec 9, 2017 6:28 PM

Mr Milosevic didn’t recognise the authority of the ICC therefore any of it’s judgements concerning him are meaningless. The article, to a degree lends credence to what is otherwise a Kangaroo court.

Yonatan
Yonatan
Dec 9, 2017 3:17 PM

This is especially damning given the ICTY was designed from the get-go to be a show trial with the prosecution allowed to use 3rd party anecdotal evidence, which the defendants can not challenge. Even with that bias in their favor, they could not fix the result they wanted. Those involved in these malicious prosecutions should face trial.

summitflyer
summitflyer
Dec 9, 2017 1:56 PM

At least the man has been vindicated .It has now been established and confirmed that he was not a genocidal murderer .May he rest in peace and for his family and friends they hold their heads high because he was loved by the people he represented.

tricia484
tricia484
Dec 9, 2017 11:01 AM

The death of Milosevic is a win-win, surely?
One less nationalistic tyrant to spread violence and hatred, and the real agenda of NATO exposed by virtue of the kangaroo courts they have been conducting.
Put it this way, if the sinister Serbian leader was still alive I have no doubt Trump would be sending him tweets congratulating him on his hatred of non-christian Bosnians.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 9, 2017 11:22 AM
Reply to  tricia484

Apologies – above comment inadvertently posted from Mrs Stotles account.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Dec 9, 2017 6:34 PM
Reply to  tricia484

I assume you have never heard the transcripts from his many speeches appealing for reason and the exact opposite of what you claim. Well done for propping up the false narrative now prevalent because of people like you. Must be lovely living in blissful ignorance and smug, sanctimonious claptrap.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 10, 2017 9:51 AM
Reply to  mohandeer

As I see it one the reasons we are all going to hell in a hand cart is because for too long bad leaders have appealed to the base instincts of populations they represent, in this respect territories in the former Yugoslavia were ripe for the emergence of a toxic leaders (because of long standing, and bitter emnities that had been somewhat contained before Tito’s death).
The list of bad leaders is very long, and those who fomented civil war in the Balkans have all added their name to the list in my opinion.
Milosevic gained power in part because of his ability to incite Serb nationalism, a kind of ‘Britain First’ with nobs on if you like – his predecessor, Ivan Stambolic, was later “disappeared” and found in a shallow grave (nothing to do with Milosevic of course).
Just because the ICTY proved an almightly clusterfuck does not exonerate Miosevic from the broader role he played in stoking ethnic and national tensions before unleashing forces from the former-Yugoslavian army against Slovenia and Croatia (after both claimed independence).
After failure to prevent independence there was no way Milosevic was going to be humiliated again in Bosnia – all hell broke loose after this and no amount of revisionism can alter the human suffering his ugly regime inflicted.
Can’t have all that death and destruction then afterwards say oh dear, how did that happen.

Admin
Admin
Dec 10, 2017 10:24 AM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

You keep returning to the theme that, despite a total lack of evidence produced in court, and even despite a not-guilty verdict, there is still some form of guilt attached to Milosevic, Mladic and others. This may be the case, but if you don’t specify what these guilty actions were your claims can sound like a backstop NATO defence. It would be helpful to understand your position if you could define what you claim Milosevic et al actually did – in concrete terms – to earn these generalised condemnations.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 10, 2017 11:17 AM
Reply to  Admin

‘You keep returning to the theme that, despite a total lack of evidence produced in court, and even despite a not-guilty verdict, there is still some form of guilt attached to Milosevic, Mladic and others’

indeed I do, as I would with other war mongers such as Blair, Bush, et al, none of whom have ever been found guilty of anything in a court of law.
Or put another way, if a court was convened and Blair (say) was exonerated I would have huge problems coming to terms with the verdict.
Post Tito Yugoslavia was driven by ancient grievances toward civil war and this conflict was stoked up by different factions – the actors who played a prominent role in these political choices are culpable directly, or indirectly for what subsequently unfolded.
I made a final post on the Mladic thread quoting Bassiouni and MCCormack who claim “By early 1993 hundreds of stories had appeared in the international press – stories of women and young girls publically gang raped by soldiers, of mass rapes in village streets and prison camps, and of women forcibly impregnated and held captive until it was too late for them to have abortions” (p1)
http://mcherifbassiouni.com/wp-content/uploads/Sexual-Violence-an-Invisible-Weapon-of-War.pdf
My own view is that while the ICTY process was tainted this does not exonerate war mongers.
On the Mladic thread I was obviously in the minority but I have not heard a single counter argument which provides a more plausible narrative as to who is responsible for the crimes that were committed (unless some people really think the conflict was more like a pop festival rather than bloody civil war) – Occam’s razor and all that.

Admin
Admin
Dec 10, 2017 12:01 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

I think you have made it plain that you have no evidence (the PDF you link to is merely unsourced allegation framed as crude propaganda), and are not above using inference and allusion as smear. This is not really respectable, but we have open comments here, so you are free to continue.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 10, 2017 1:55 PM
Reply to  Admin

You won’t hear a bad word against racist chest thumpers who lead their country to ghastly sectarian conflicts – fine that’s your perogative.
The likes of Milosevic are part of a much wider problem in my opinion; ruthless leaders who instead of uniting the country they are meant to be serving instead sow division and hatred in order to advance military solutions to civil problems (unless you are arguing the war did not happen).
We see this stuff all of the time – I’m not saying Milosevic is the worst but in the link I provide on the Mladic thread (or presumably allegations from your perspective) it is suggested in excess of 100,000 deaths occured during the Balkans conflict with many other abuses, and mass population displacement on top of this (I’m sorry I can’t provide primary evidence ratified by an appropriate legal authority).
Anyway what a marvellous outcome from Milosevics tenure. At the same time old ethnic and national tensions still simmer, presumably awaiting the latest sectarian chest thumper to ignite yet another war in the region.

Big B
Big B
Dec 10, 2017 3:49 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Jeez Harry, you still going? The Stalinist kangaroo court acquitted Milosevic not once, but twice. He tried to appease Karadzic, was against Gretater Serbia, condemned ethnic cleansing and tried to stop the war. They couldn’t even get him on the made up charge of “joint criminal enterprise”. Do you not think this is significant? This has to be weighed heavily against the NATO-US diplomatic assertion that the fall of Milosevic was the vindication of ALL the NATO crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. Don’t you think that if they could make the “Beast of Bosnia” denigration stick – they would??? They hung the need for intervention on that demonisation; and the need to avert ‘another’ genocide in Kosovo. The crimes (including his probable murder) are NATO’s???
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/01/the-exoneration-of-milosevic-the-ictys-surprise-ruling/

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 10, 2017 7:10 PM
Reply to  Big B

Hi Big B – thanks for the link.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this one.
Personally what I feel is completely missing from these threads is the political context which first triggered the killing (I hope its not too disrepectful to suggest people were harmed without supplying evidential proof that has been tested in court).
Leaving aside the failings of the ICTY, and the post-war NATO agenda which subverted it, nobody seems particularly interested in how Bosnia, or the other Balkan territories found themselves in such a mess in the first place?
In other words I do not think we can begin to understand these events without first understanding why neighbours wanted to kill each other (allegedly) or which actors played the most prominent role in manipulating these tensions.
There is a pretty good account by a historian who as far as I know does not have a dog in this fight, which provides some useful insights, and paints the likes of Milosovic in fairly unfavourable terms (ditto NATO and other actors).
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-wars-of-the-former-yugoslavia-1221861
The point being post-Tito the former Yugoslavia had a number of options open to them but these territories were plunged into another needless war by their crappy leaders .
I have never contested the lack of evidence against Milosevic, nor have I tried to underplay the abject failings of NATO or their placemen in the ICTY, but this still doesn’t prevent Miosevic from being viewed as part of a wider problem; a political class who do not seem to be able to settle differences without calling in the military.
Ivan Stambolic, Milosevic’s predecessor went out for a jog and disappeared. Three years later his remains were found in a shallow grave (although I have no evidence to prove this).
Report here if interested.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ivan-stambolic-36385.html

BigB
BigB
Dec 11, 2017 9:52 AM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Harry: I think we can agree that in the Balkans War(s) unspeakable hell was let loose – with horrific atrocities committed by all parties involved? Blame is not so easy to apportion. The problem with dumbed down oversimplified histories (such as one you posted: which is nothing more than the NATO narrative – the credibility of which has been blown by the ICTY) is that they don’t account for a thousand years of state, ethnic, and religious history – which need to be taken into account, if you want to answer the question ”why”? Over time, there were multiple actors and multiple motives local to the Balkans …and multiple actors and multiple motives of foreign interventionists: manipulating events to multiple geo-strategic goals …good luck with rationalising and objectifying all that! Especially now the soundbite history that Milosevic was the new Hitler that caused it all has collapsed.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 24, 2017 4:34 PM
Reply to  Big B

Harry wants to believe the nonsense narrative and debating on matters of faith is not productive.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 24, 2017 6:02 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

If there is a counter narrative to events precipitating the Balkan war(s) or protagonists who orchestrated the conflict I would love to hear it (although if the rest of this thread is anything to go by I am not holding my breath).
Perhaps it was all just a terrible misunderstanding and Milosevic was a man of peace who would never manipulate Serbian media to push a nationalist agenda?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/karadzic/bosnia/media.html
And at the risk of repeating myself I have never taken the line that Milosevic was exceptional (just one of a shitty bunch) or that the ICTY process was not flawed (it was) but at the same time if a touch of schadenfreude was felt amongst Bosnian muslims after his death who would be willing to criticise them, eh?

Admin
Admin
Dec 10, 2017 4:58 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

You read the words I wrote, and you choose to pretend I said something else. This is not adding to your credibility. “Racist chest thumpers” are not endorsed here, as you well know. You were called to account for failing to provide any evidence in support of your repeated allegations against Milosevic et al. You still fail to provide any evidence and simply add an extra layer of fact-free smear by inference.
It’s what MSM ‘journalists’ do when they have been detailed to discredit person X, but have no dirt at their disposal. They use inference and arguments from alleged general knowledge to create the impression that X is a tyrant or murderer or whatever, in hopes this will persuade people there is a mass of evidence in support of this claim, when in fact there is none at all.
It’s dishonest and discreditable. But – as I said before – this site upholds free speech, which includes the right to be dishonest and discreditable, if this is the kind of thing you like to do.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 24, 2017 6:30 PM
Reply to  Admin

Harry seems to think manipulating the media is a capital offense. It is ubiquitous, indeed a core value of nearly all politicians. So Harry are you saying it is a capital offense if you disagree with the manipulation?

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 24, 2017 7:21 PM
Reply to  George Cornell

No, I am not saying that manipulating the media is a capital offense, I cited control of it as an important clue to Milosevic’s pre-war intentions.
We saw the same sort of thing in the US and UK, pre-Iraq.

Kaya3
Kaya3
Dec 13, 2017 6:08 AM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

FFS Blair and Bush have never been take anywhere near a court of law. If they had they would make Milosvic would look like Santa Claus. Your argument is inane.

kayaboosha
kayaboosha
Dec 13, 2017 6:09 AM
Reply to  Kaya3

Apologies for the apparent grammar errors but I am spitting tacks reading this garbage.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 26, 2017 10:33 AM
Reply to  kayaboosha

Any idea why so many of Milosevic’s political opponents ended up dead or shot?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/794259.stm

Admin
Admin
Dec 27, 2017 7:41 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Do we simply believe the BBC? Like every other NATO propaganda outfit it was working 24/7 to demonise Milosevic in 2000. They do the same thing with Putin today but the claims rarely stands up to close analysis. This is not to say the accusation could not possibly be true in this case, but we need very good second sources before we can accept it as fact.
Do we have any?

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 27, 2017 7:50 PM
Reply to  Admin

Oh those dead might have had something else in common besides their absence from Milosevic’s Christmas card list. I agree completely with the penchant for demonization by the MSM. They need enemies to serve up to their rulers to earn their keep. They are for the most part to journalism as methane gas is to cows.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Dec 27, 2017 8:45 PM
Reply to  Admin

OK forget about the Beebs report of Vuk Draskovic being shot in the head.
Surely you can’t dispute the conviction of Nenad Bujosevic and Nenad Ilic for the death of 4 of Draskovic’s aids, killed in a car crash during a previous attempt to take out Draskovic?
Cited in ‘The Balkans: A Post-Communist History’ (p299).
Analysis has to go beyond NATO = bad – victims of NATO = good.
Anyway these things come down to belief – just as I don’t accept the official Kennedy conspiracy theory neither do I accept Milosevic’s opponents were not targets once they refused to buy into his nationalistic vision of Serbia’s future.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 27, 2017 9:13 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Harry, you seem to be forgetting he was exonerated. It would make as much sense to hang Kissinger and Blair and maybe they should get their day in court.

Admin
Admin
Dec 27, 2017 11:38 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

If you take another look at my previous words you’ll notice I’m not disputing anything. I’m asking for evidence. Because that’s what we like to focus on here as much as possible. When you are dealing with a figure who has been so ferociously demonised it only makes sense to get a good cross section of data from both sides – that’s all.
How much of your image of Milosevic as a violent nationalist – which is taken verbatim from western media sources – would be endorsed by those who got their information from non-NATO, pro-Serbian sources?
That is a question, not a disputation!

Willem
Willem
Dec 9, 2017 9:56 AM

Chomsky on Milosovic in 2006
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RjVYrrCz1yE
Transcript
DM: I want to ask you about some of the present developments that are being used again to fabricate a lot of these issues. Slobodan Milosevic died last month. What is the significance of his death in your view?
NC: Milosevic was, he committed many crimes, not a nice person, terrible person, but the charges against him would have never have held up. He was originally indicted on the Kosovo charges. The indictment was issued right in the middle of bombing which already nullifies it. It used British, it admittedly used British and the U.S. intelligence right in the middle of bombing, can’t possibly take it seriously. However if you look at the indictment, it was for crimes committed after the bombing. There was one exception: Racak. Let’s even grant that the claims are true, let’s put that aside. So, there was one exception, no evidence that he was involved or you know, it took place,
But almost the entire indictment was for after the bombing. How are those charges going to stand up unless you put Bill Clinton and Tony Blair on the dock alongside? Then they realized that it was a weak case. So they added the early Balkan wars, OK? Lot of horrible things happened there. But the worst crime, the one that they were really going to charge him for that genocide was Srebrenica.
Now, there is a little problem with that: namely there was an extensive, detailed inquiry into it by the Dutch Government, which was the responsible government, there were Dutch forces there, that’s a big, you know, hundreds of pages inquiry, and their conclusion is that Milosevic did not know anything about that, and that when it was discovered in Belgrade, they were horrified. Well, suppose that had entered into the testimony?
DM: Does this mean that you are a “Milosevic sympathizer”?
NC: No, he was terrible. In fact he should have been thrown out, in fact he probably would have been thrown out and in the early nineties if the Albanians had voted, it was pretty close. He did all sorts of terrible things but it wasn’t a totalitarian state, I mean, there were elections, there was the opposition, a lot of rotten things, but there are rotten things everywhere and I certainly wouldn’t want to have dinner with him or talk to him, and yes, he deserves to be tried for crimes, but this trial was never going to hold up, if it was even semi-honest. It was a farce; in fact they were lucky that he died.
DM: In what sense?
NC: Because they did not have to go through out the whole trial. Now they can, you can build up an image about how he would have been convicted as another Hitler.

elenits
elenits
Dec 9, 2017 10:17 AM
Reply to  Willem

Thanks for that Willem.
As usual Chomsky is talking out of both sides of his mouth…

Arrby
Arrby
Dec 9, 2017 7:48 PM
Reply to  elenits

Do you say that because you don’t like what he’s saying?

mohandeer
mohandeer
Dec 10, 2017 4:27 PM
Reply to  elenits

@elenits
Noam Chomsky has a habit of sticking his neck out so far and withdrawing before he gets it chopped off. The “rebel” gets cold feet – again. He’s not getting any better with age. His desire to get credit for his trailblazing only takes him so far before he starts backtracking. As a clever man once said, everything after the “but” is bs. Milosevic was not guilty, but………….
🙂

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 24, 2017 4:36 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

Except when all before the ‘but’ is BS

mohandeer
mohandeer
Dec 9, 2017 6:37 PM
Reply to  Willem

It was the fact that the NATO Allies did not want the rest of the trial aired that was the reason for having him poisoned and dead.

elenits
elenits
Dec 9, 2017 7:58 AM

Good comment.
Nowadays it is worse than that – worse than a simple smear tsunami (western propaganda).
Nowadays to bolster the funded & created “good guys” (from Black Lives Matter to Macron) you have to also create & fund the “bad guys”. In Europe Jobbik, Golden Dawn….

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Dec 9, 2017 7:37 AM

The oligarchy doesn’t only manufacture consent, they manufacture ‘enemies’