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File photo of Mladic from 1995. AP Photo/Oleg Stjepanovic, File

Bosnian Serb ex-army chief's defence case opens against charges of genocide

Ratko Mladic faces 11 charges for his role in Bosnia’s brutal 1992-95 conflict in which 100,000 people died.

THE DEFENCE CASE of the Bosnian Serb ex-army chief accused of masterminding some of Europe’s worst atrocities since World War II opens today at the Yugoslav war crimes court.

Ratko Mladic, 72, faces 11 charges ranging from hostage-taking to genocide for his role in Bosnia’s brutal 1992-95 conflict in which 100,000 people died and 2.2 million were left homeless.

An unnamed witness has come forward to give evidence before a three-judge bench of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie has given Mladic’s lawyers 207 hours to question witnesses — the same amount of time given to the prosecution, who finished their case earlier this year, the ICTY said in a statement.

There was no restriction on the number of witnesses defence lawyers could call, it added.

Massacre

Arrested in Serbia and transferred to the ICTY in 2011, the former Bosnian Serb commander is in particular wanted for his role in the June 1995 massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia.

There, Mladic’s forces overran lightly armed Dutch UN troops protecting the supposedly safe enclave, before murdering the men and boys and dumping their bodies into mass graves.

Dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia”, the former Bosnian Serb army general is also held responsible for conducting a campaign against residents of Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo during a 44-month siege.

Snipers and shelling

Some 10,000 people were killed, many by snipers and shelling.

He has also been charged for taking hostage a group of over 200 United Nations peacekeepers during the conflict, keeping them in strategic locations as “human shields” against NATO air strikes.

Mladic, known for his outbursts in court, has denied the charges. He faces life in prison if convicted.

“Satanic”

In January, he refused to testify at the trial of Radovan Karadzic, his political counterpart at the time, repeatedly dismissing the UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal as “satanic”.

Karadzic had hoped Mladic would testify that they did not agree or plan to expel Muslims or Croats from areas under Serb control.

The two men could have been tried together had they been arrested around the same time. But Karadzic was arrested in July 2008 and Mladic in May 2011.

Last month, the ICTY upheld the charges against Mladic in a hearing to see if there was enough evidence to continue trying him after prosecutors closed their case.

Judge Orie ruled then that Mladic “had a case to answer on all counts of the indictment”.

 © – AFP, 2014

Read: Belgrade braced for massive “flooding wave” as disaster death toll tops 44 >

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    Mute George Grey
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    May 19th 2014, 9:20 AM

    A butcher that should be executed. He will, however, never have to experience and suffering he wreaked on ordinary men, women and children despite his guilt. He is a scourge on the planet and all mankind.

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 10:38 AM

    Oh right, so then you agree Bill Clinton should also be executed for bombing Yugoslavia back into the stone age right?

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    Mute George Grey
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    May 19th 2014, 10:45 AM

    Correct

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 10:47 AM

    You’re not a hypocrite at least, I can respect that

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    May 19th 2014, 11:09 AM

    Wolf, NATO did not bomb Yugoslavia back into the Stone Age. That’s a wild exaggeration on your part. That was done by the conflict itself. NATO went in to stop the Serbs. Please do some reading on the war.

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 11:27 AM

    I can assure you Declan I have read about it, more than you I’d bet. 19 NATO countries bombed Belgrade killing thousands people, the majority of them civillians, hospitals and public utilities and transportation systems were bombed, even the Chinese embassy. It was a stupid wreckless slaughter. even Amnesty International came out and condemned it. Go back to watching Fox and CNN and reading the funny pages.

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    Bill
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    May 19th 2014, 11:30 AM

    So Declan the conflict did the bombing of civilians and not NATO you sure come out with new uses for the English language
    Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright are far bigger war criminals than this guy

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 11:33 AM

    I’ve just written my thesis on this subject, I’m in awe of how little I knew about the whole situation, and how little most people know. In 1992 Bosnian Muslims hired Ruder Finn, a PR company that had previously been hired by Philip Morris to convince scientists that cigarettes were not bad for health. They hired them in the same month as the words “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” were used in the mainstream media in relation to the picture of Fikrit Alic in Bosnia in 1992, claiming concentration camps. Interestingly Bosnian Muslims had more camps than Bosnian Serbs.

    From all the data complied for the whole conflict no one can agree on the actual casualty figures. There are huge question marks over the entire issue. What I found was that, while the Serbs committed grave crimes, so did everyone else. Slovenia and Croatia called for independence in the region, forcing Bosnia and Montenegro to do the same. Serbia called for Yugoslavia to remain together, due to the scattered Serbian population through numerous states.

    The NATO bombing of Kosovo was completely illegal, killing many. They too should be held to account, as with all other perpetrators of crimes there. Kosovo gave precedent for humanitarian war in Iraq in 2003. NATO expansion in the Balkans is the reason Putin is expanding into Ukraine now. Dangerous games were played in the Balkans, and the narrative of the Serbs being wholly to blame continues in the mainstream media. It’s simply not true.

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    May 19th 2014, 11:40 AM

    Wolf, I love it when people like you make the comment “go back to watching CNN and Fox News”! I wasn’t watching either network back then and I certainly don’t watch Fox News now.
    You say that you have read up on this conflict but you provide inaccurate statements about the war?!

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    Mute Declan Noonan
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    May 19th 2014, 11:44 AM

    Bill, wolf said that NATO bombed it back to the Stone Age!! His comment not mine. It’s widely known that Serbia was the main aggressor in that conflict. They blew the country apart. It’s well documented.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 11:52 AM

    It’s well documented that there were many “main” aggressors Declan, such as Croatian president Franjo Trudjman, who died before he could go to trial. You’re clearly not read up on this, believe me, I am. And it’s a murky affair that doesn’t fit with your simplistic “good vs evil” viewpoint. And that’s the problem with this issue, everybody believes one thing, but there is no fully sure truth. And I’ve read hundreds of documents on this, books, journals, newspaper articles from the time, trial reports, ICTY reports, yada, yada. From one set of numbers about casualties three respected groups came up with 3 widely varying set of figures. A lot of testimony is based on second hand information from witnesses, many who say very different things happened. Who do you believe? You believe whatever the mainstream media tell you to believe.

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 11:53 AM

    Dave, thanks for that, I never knew that first point you made, can I ask where you read it, I would be interested in reading in more detail?

    Declan – It was a figure of speech, in other words you’re parroting the fabricated stories rolled out by the US propaganda machine, I’m sure you’re not a stupid person but you’ve only heard one side of the story and to you it’s a simplistic conclusion that Serbs = bad, NATO = good. it’s never as simple as that. Furthermore, everything I stated was to the best of my knowledge was fact.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 12:10 PM

    I used various peer reviewed journals Wolf, but they are not in the public domain, they have to be paid for so I can’t link them. I have access through the university library. The whole genocide story was borne out of a story by Roy Gutman in Newsday in July 1992. On August 5th Penny Marshall of ITN and Ed Vuillamy of The Guardian reported the concentration camp story. The ITN story had a 20 second clip of the emaciated Fikrit Alic behind barbed wire fence, and by August 6th the headline “Belsen 92″ was being run in The Mirror with a screen grab from the ITN report. By August 13th the UN security council had drafted a resolution. Interestingly the camps of other factions were not highlighted in the media, even though many did exist.

    In 1997 Thomas Deichmann wrote an article for Living Marxism in which he debunked the claims of Marshall and Vuillamys report. He was a special witness in the ICTY and had access to all the footage Marshall had used, which showed that the shoot had been framed to look like a camp. When Ed Vuillamy was giving evidence about this he asked for the video to be turned off, because he could describe better what happened than showing it. (I’ve read the court transcripts for this). ITN sued Living Marxism over Deichmanns claims, and won the case. But only on the grounds that Marshall and Vuillamy did not intend to deceive the public, not over what Deichmann had claimed was in their reports. By this stage the Serbians were the Nazis, and have been ever since in the main stream media.

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    May 19th 2014, 12:23 PM

    Facinating stuff Dave, you’ve clearly done your homework, I’m impressed :-)

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 12:30 PM

    I’ve spent 5 months researching this subject. And after that I’m still not clear where the fault lies. It’s such a complex scenario with so many agents playing. But people believe the simplistic good vs evil over complexity. The entire conflict was a catastrophe, but simply blaming the Serbs is not good enough anymore. It’s much deeper than that.

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    Bill
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    May 19th 2014, 12:55 PM

    Excellent interpretation of sequence of events Dave

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    Mute George Grey
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    May 19th 2014, 12:58 PM

    The hell and horrors of war have no justice on either side of its aggressors. Whatever about the politics you should all read Robert Fisk accounts of this tragedy. Truly horrifying.

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    Bill
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    May 19th 2014, 12:58 PM

    Declan Noonan NATO committed mass murder in Serbia THAT is well documented

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    Mute Brian Dublin
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    May 19th 2014, 2:08 PM

    People are too quick to condemn Serbia. If you know the history of the Balkans, you will understand the underlying reasons for such hatred. The Ottoman empire tried to eradicate the Orthadox Christian Serbian population, as did the Austro-Hungarian empire, as did the Croatian neo-Nazi regime endorsed and supported by Roman Catholicism lead by Cardinal Stepinac.

    Perhaps it is unsurprising that Miladic is regarded as a national hero among the people of Serbia after what they have had to endure through their long and torturous history.

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    Mute Brian Corcoran
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    May 19th 2014, 8:49 AM

    Hopefully he’ll have to serb a long sentence behind bars

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 10:44 AM

    If he was pro-America you wouldn’t hear a thing about him and the fabriceted 8,000 executed figure, unlke the pro-NATO KLA murderers / Bosnian Mujahideen who no one has heard of and escaped justice. Always listen to both sides – the truth lies somewhere in the middle

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    Mute Won Hung Loh
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    May 19th 2014, 10:15 AM

    Has he got any relations in Mullingar or Rathkeale?

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 11:30 AM

    The BBC’s “Death of Yugoslavia” is a phenomenal documentary series.. filmed shortly after the Dayton Peace Accords, it interviews most of the key protagonists on all sides, including Mladic.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 11:34 AM

    (it’s all on youtube)

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 11:42 AM

    That documentary has been debunked at this stage.It’s a far from useful clear insight into what happened.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 12:08 PM

    Debunked by whom?.. It has top officials from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro.. including Milosevic, Mladic, Karadzic, Tudman, Izetbegovic etc.. as well as the lead US/EU negotiators.. all telling it in their own words 6 months after Dayton?!!

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 12:13 PM

    There was far more going on in The Balkans than this documentary could ever cover. It has been debunked by academics in the field.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 1:10 PM

    Of course it doesn’t cover all issues to a comprehensive academic standard.. what documentary ever does?! You could read the script of an hour long documentary in 10 minutes. Doesn’t mean it’s not a top class production in the medium of a tv documentary. Still waiting for evidence of “debunking” which is a very strong absolutist term and which is hard to believe considering the documentary directly interviews the key people involved as primary sources.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 3:02 PM

    Read my previous comments. That this documentary is seen as the standard for information on the conflict is wrong. You couldn’t understand WW 2 in its entirety from one short documentary series. This is the same. A documentary could be made on a single day of the conflict and not get it right. The situation in the Balkans is incredibly complex, “The Death of Yugoslavia” goes no way in explaining that complexity. But I agree with you that a documentary could never cover it all, documentaries always have a narrative. That means they should never really be used as a device for gaining true understanding of a topic. Was Ruder Finn mentioned in “The Death of Yugoslavia”? Or perhaps that there was an implication of Bosnian Muslims bombing their own people at Markale in Sarajevo on February 5th 1994? Or that many parts of the documentary were incorrectly subtitled? Interviewing key people doesn’t mean they are telling the truth. Many in this conflict did not tell the truth. But we can never fully know because so many people told lies it is difficult to discern truth,

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 3:44 PM

    Nobody said it was the gold standard for a comprehensive academic review of the wars in the Balkans. Nobody said the subject matter is not incredibly complex. As an accessible introduction to the subject matter it is a top notch television documentary. It can’t be argued that it is not at least fascinating to see the key protagonists put forward their warped/idealised versions of events and portray themselves as virtuous warriors/statesmen. To take everything at face value and to not investigate further is clearly naive. Likewise, to dismiss its value wholeheartedly (despite some translation errors) borders on the elitist.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 3:54 PM

    It’s not though, is it? That it was used as part of the ICTY trials shows how seriously wrong it is. It’s not a good basis, it’s a bad basis. And people do take it at face value, such as those conducting court trials on crimes in the Balkans. They took it at face value, just like people took Penny Marshalls ITN report at face value. People die when you put out simplistic versions of complex issues, thats the problem with this documentary.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 4:15 PM

    The ICTY has it’s own rules on the admissibility and veracity of evidence, under international law. It’s no great surprise that video recordings of defendants would be put forward as evidence by the prosecution/defence. It’s evidence. The weight and veracity attached to it is a matter of judicial interpretation.. Your solution appears to be: don’t make tv documentaries on complex historical matters as people, including international criminal judges, are too stupid to question and interpret the content of such documentaries.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 5:12 PM

    A tv documentary is not evidence, especially with dubious subtitling. There are serious issues with the ICTY. I have no problems with documentaries, but I understand that they all have a narrative. People take them as fact. But that’s the same with the news. I’ve studied these subjects for 4 years, and after it I can tell you not to believe either the news or documentaries. When either start changing policy it can become dangerous.

    That you think judges should be interpreting documentaries as evidence says it all. How can a documentary made by a television company be evidence? That’s like saying a Daily Mail news article can be used as evidence.

    My solution is to view everything in a wider context, to not take a documentary as wholly true and to question everything. When you stop doing that those with influence dominate. We don’t have enough people questioning.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 5:37 PM

    A tv documentary is not evidence. Video recordings of defendants contained in a tv documentary clearly could be. You don’t need 4 years of study to know not to believe everything in the news. It’s harder to dismiss primary source video recordings.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 6:01 PM

    Like the video footage of the camp at Omarska shot by ITN on August 5th 1992? The footage that defined the terms “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide”. The footage that inferred a simplistic good vs evil dichotomy that echoed the Nazis? That report on ITN was taken as fact, the overall footage was easily dismissed. Video recordings in a tv documentary are not fact, documentary film making is a form of propaganda, one that fits the directors narrative. That has already been stated by many academics of this documentary. If the research into death figures from the entire conflict can give varying results (3 sets of academics used the same set of data that gave varying results), how can you expect that a documentary series would be credible evidence. That’s just daft.

    You don’t need 4 years of study to know not to believe everything in the news. And you don’t need 4 years of study to know not to believe everything you see in a documentary. But deep study helps understand the subject matter more. Maybe the ICTY could have done with more study instead of using a documentary series created in a different country with dubious editing and content techniques. That was shown by others doing deep study of the subject. Not by mere guessing or watching documentaries. I’d love to know how much you’ve actually read about the Balkans in the 1990′s.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 6:56 PM

    A Junior Cert understanding of history knows the difference between a primary and secondary source.. A first year law understanding of evidence can spot a primary piece of evidence.. Of course a video recording could be considered admissible evidence in a court of law.. The veracity/weight of such evidence would be a matter of law. You fail to understand the distinction between a primary source (video recorded interviews, shootings etc) and a secondary source (documentary, news report etc introducing context/narratives). I seriously doubt the highly-qualified international criminal lawyers and judiciary of the ICTY took the BBCs interpretation of the conflict as a matter of fact and failed to question same. In relation to the documentary itself, I merely stated it is a top quality introduction to the subject matter, but like any documentary is flawed and should not be viewed in isolation.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 7:30 PM

    An interview with a person after the fact conducted by a media corporation is not a primary source of evidence. A video recording of the actual event is a primary piece of evidence, like that at Omarska in 1992. The highly qualified criminal lawyers at the ICTY did indeed take BBC’s documentary as a matter of fact. But you already knew that, right? It’s not, in any way, a top quality introduction to the subject matter, because its littered with inconsistency. But I’m sure you knew that too. It is deeply flawed, to the point of being wrong. But they don’t teach you that in Junior cert history or first year law. That you see it as such really shows how little you actually know about the entire conflict in the Balkans. And that’s not your fault, I didn’t know either until conducting months of research. And to be honest, I still don’t know. That’s how complex the situation is, it’s nearly impossible to paint a clear picture.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 8:04 PM

    We get it.. you’re the expert.. been reading about it for five months (new year’s resolution?).. who knew an ancient inter-ethnic conflict could be so complex.. it’s clearly too nuanced for the ICTY, the BBC or us mere mortals to even attempt to come to terms with.. better off not even trying and leaving it to the expert.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 8:17 PM

    Thesis. I knew. You didn’t. Stick to the documentaries, they’re easier. It’s hard to comprehend that just maybe the ICTY or the BBC have some forms of agenda. I won’t bother explaining what those agendas could be, you seem smart enough to work that out yourself. I’m sorry to be the one that dashes your dreams of getting your information off the telly box. But, sure, you can still carry on believing, be easier for you that way.

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    Mute Diarmuid
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    May 19th 2014, 9:03 PM

    5 months into a thesis.. your unprecedented academic achievements know no bounds.. I hope for your sake you can back up your self-perceived academic elitism and appraise the Balkan wars in an understandable manner.. unless of course the theme of the thesis is in line with your previous posts: “The Balkans – Too Complex to Comprehend”.

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 10:34 PM

    Ha ha! Good one. I’m sure your aware of the use of attacking the person rather than the information. Classic flak, I’m sure you’re aware of the propaganda model. Self-percieved academic elitism? I’m pretty sure I heard Glenn Beck using that one. Or was it Sean Hannity? Anyhoo, I didn’t study the Balkans for 4 years, that’s a bit specialist. I did study the media though. And thanks for the interest, the thesis is now finished.

    And yes, that was the exact title. “Too Complex to Comprehend” with the subheading “By Watching a 4 Hour BBC Documentary”. I found that a conflict that involved multiple parties, both internal and external, both within borders and outside borders, was far more complex than could be understood by a documentary that has been called into question. Here, there’s a documentary on More 4 about a town of fat people starting soon, you should watch it!

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    May 19th 2014, 1:29 PM

    I’m going to ignore the debate between the neocons and RBB types who can frankly have their little p1ssing contest over which side was more evil, I’ve no interest in that debate….
    Regardless of the geopolitics behind past interventions my beleif in the criteria for future ones is the exact same. Your type always says it’s only the Americans come in world superpower but then you turn around and oppose us having any of the tech that would allow countries like ours to band together and go instead (like air force jets) and then demand we stay neutral.
    Neutrality is a fundamentally cowardly and amoral position.

    As to why we should have gotten involved, because were human beings. That was meant to be the entire point of the UN to stop things like this if you read the history. The fundamental design flaw in putting veto’s in the SC scrapped the entire thing. But even then there were early discussions one permanent member was going to provide the air power one the naval power etc.

    I think it’s disgusting and hypocritical to build things like holocaust memorials here when we did nothing to stop any of it happening.

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 1:56 PM

    Ryan – the people who intervene in other countries’ domestic conflicts aren’t as stupid as they look, they always have a motive for intervention and believe me it is never about humanatarian concerns. They make up these notions of intervening because of “human rights violations” etc to make the general public supportive of their actions. They couldn’t care less about human casualties. We are right as a nation to stay out of foreign conflicts unless it affects us directly – although the Irish never really, fully were neutral and often play a small role whether it be by allowing US planes to fuel in Shannon or by sending “Peacekeepers” into foreign countries to police them.

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    Mute Tommy Whelan
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    May 19th 2014, 2:22 PM

    That’s like saying if you saw someone been drag into a alleyway you should walk on by . It’s none of our business . People are too busy worrying about the consequences then doing the right .

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    May 19th 2014, 2:23 PM

    thing .

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 3:18 PM

    You clearly have no understanding of geo-politics Ryan Carroll. By your logic we would be in North Korea, The Congo and many other countries by now. NATO or the UN are not. But they went into a country with a lot of oil, Iraq, and a country located beside their old Cold War enemy, Kosovo and Russia. Your simplistic analysis is why this goes unchecked. Who’s to say who’s manipulating the information? Your labeling of people with opinions is classic flak, used to uphold propaganda. It’s an intricate game, politics, and you’d be very naive to think people were intervening to actually save lives. Sadly we don’t live in that world.

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    May 19th 2014, 3:28 PM

    So what ur saying dave is that when Ireland sent troops into kosavo they did it for there own gain and not humanitarian reasons . USA is becoming self sufficient in oil due to fracking . Iraq is only pumping out 20 percent of its oil capacity . Iraqi oil exported to the USA has drop since the Iraq war not increase and it accounts for less then 5 percent , far less then when saddam was in power .

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    May 19th 2014, 3:35 PM

    So you actually believe they went into Iraq to “save” the people? What about Congo? Or North Korea? Ireland did it for political reasons, the same as everybody else. Be that to be seen as an active part of the UN or whatever else. Here’s an interesting fact, when Sweden gives aid it does under the conditions that fighter jets are purchased from Saab. All the facts are out there, they just take time to find. As I say, politics is a murky business, nothing comes for free.

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    May 19th 2014, 3:38 PM

    Maybe you could explain why the uk gives 11 billion away in foreign aid every yr . One third of its military budget .

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 3:45 PM

    They do it to help their fellow man. Just like when they invade a country like Iraq that sees countless civilians dead. They’re helping those people too. They might be dead, but they appreciate the sentiment nonetheless. As I already said, nothing comes for free. It’s far too complex to explain in a paragraph here, but you seem interested in the subject so I’ll let you do your own research.

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 20th 2014, 11:48 AM

    Tommy – foreign aid doesn’t help the people of these countries, it just impoverishes them further and puts them further into debt. I recommend the books Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo or Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. If the superpowers really wanted to help people they would cancel foreign debt but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen in this lifetime.

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    May 19th 2014, 10:39 AM

    Are you all glad we were neutral in this? As we set up our Holocaust museum?

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 10:46 AM

    This was a conflict between ethnic groups in the Balkins, it’s being going on for centuries, why should “we” get involved? Are we a world Police force? Do you think NATO got involved because they care about people being killed?

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    Mute Business Cat
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    May 19th 2014, 10:51 AM

    The UN tried & failed.

    NATO intervention in Kosovo stopped bloodshed….. Its a shame they did not intervene in Bosnia.

    Though I appreciate people prefer a 100,000+ Europeans die to support their agenda.

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 11:08 AM

    If the UN or NATO cared about people why were there no “peacekeepers” sent to Northern Ireland? Because the US has nothing to benefit by going there. If the new world order were so concerned with justice why were the Paratroopers from Bloody Sunday not put on trial? Why do the Israelis get away with genocide, where’s the showtrials for the Israeli Moddad / Stern Gang terrorists? There is justice for some and not for others.

    NATO intervention in Kosovo stopped bloodshed? Thousands of civillians were killed and civillian targets were bombed by NATO including hospitals full of patients, a train was bombed containing Croat evacuees – It’s so nice you can comment on the wonderful things NATO did when you live in this safe, ignorant little country, when it wasn’t your family or friends roasted alive by the Clinton gang!

    The Kosovo provence historically belongs to the Serbs, after Tito died the Muslims in the area started to attack and murder the Serbs – they started the ethnic cleansing.

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 11:09 AM

    *Mossad

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 11:46 AM

    They bombed Kosovo to push NATO further eastwards, something they had promised Russia they would not do after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was only for this reason that the bombing took place. It is also the reason why Putin in now pushing back. At the time Russian politicians were very fearful of what the bombing meant for the future of NATO.

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    Mute Tommy Whelan
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    May 19th 2014, 12:18 PM

    J r wolf . When NATO went into kosavo most of the Serbs pack up and left and headed across the border . The only Serbs left in kosavo where the elderly . They had nowhere to go . The Albanians took there revenge on the elderly . People living on there own terrified in there own homes . NATO did everything they could to protect those people . The elderly where found in there own homes with there throats cut from ear to ear by there Albanian neighbours . An elderly couple drag out of there car and stab in the street as they where trying to escape the country . Escorts where put on daily to the Serbian border to try and save as many as possible . Many Serbs where save with the help of NATO and many of them where grateful for help they got .

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    Mute J R Wolf
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    May 19th 2014, 12:27 PM

    I don’t doubt that Tommy, but had NATO stayed out of it altogether the Serbs would have ended the problem very swiftly. The Albanians are never mentioned in the mainstream news and all of them escaped justice. They were even killing captured Serb troops and civillians and harvested them for their organs to sell on the black market – you’d imagine things like that would get more news coverage.

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    Mute Tommy Whelan
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    May 19th 2014, 12:53 PM

    Dave the Russians enter kosavo at the same time as NATO troops . They took over pristina airport . The yanks gave the order to the Brits to push the Russians out of the airport by force . General Jackson disobey the order saying he wasnt going to be responsible for starting a war with the Russians .

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    Mute dave barnaville
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    May 19th 2014, 3:08 PM

    The issue with bombing Kosovo under humanitarian grounds due to advocacy journalism is that it sets a precedence to do it elsewhere. That’s the danger. How many died in Iraq for this reason? There needs to be limits on what is done. NATO was devised for protection of its members, if one is attacked all are attacked. Not for aggression into non-NATO member countries. Geo-politics is not black and white, the reasons for doing this are far beyond protecting people of the Balkans. That it happened just after the Cold War, in a region close to Russia, is no accident. If it were for true humanitarian grounds the 5.4 million people that have died in the biggest conflict since WW 2 would have had the same intervention. But nobody cares about the Congo because there is no political gains to be made from intervening there.

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    Mute Mindfulirish
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    May 19th 2014, 10:21 AM

    Is that Bertie? Spitting image.

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