Bin Laden is Bosnian and Karadzic is in the Dock?

Bin Laden is Bosnian and Karadzic is in the Dock?

03.03.2010 | 02:53

 With friends like Osama Bin Laden among the Bosnians, why should Radovan Karadzic need enemies? As the defence enters the last day of two, we see the utter injustice of the International Criminal Court, a NATO instrument of kidnapping, illegal detention and laundering of NATO war crimes. If it were a serious legal institution, Bush and his cronies would be languishing in a cell. As it is, it has again violated its own Constitution and the case is void.

Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the Bosnian war, entered the first of his two-day defence today in front of the ICC at The Hague. Denying two counts of genocide and nine others (murder, extermination, persecution, forced deportation and seizing hostages), he declares that he will "defend that nation of ours" which followed a "just and holy cause". After all, Radovan Karadzic was fighting international terrorism. And who was on the other side? The one the CIA referred to as UBL, himself: Osama Bin Laden.

Claiming that the Serbs were demonised for everything they did and promising to tell the "marble truth", Dr. Karadzic, a psychiatrist, has been accused of orchestrating a campaign to ethnically cleanse areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina in a campaign which included the 44-month siege of Sarajevo and the so-called "massacre of Srebrenica" in July 1995 in which 8,000 Moslem males were killed.

But what is the other side to the coin? Dr. Karadzic claims to "have good evidence and proof" that the Serbs were only defending themselves against the Croatian and Moslem "ethnocentric aims" of Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovic to carve out their own States and that the 8.000 figure was an invention by his enemies including civilians and soldiers killed by the Moslems themselves.

Furthermore, several Dutch soldiers from the Netherlands battalion in Srebrenica have come forward, declaring they were hated in their own country, that there is complete repression against them and claiming that they did not see any Serbs committing any war crimes, that they had to defend themselves against the Moslems and not the Serbs, and further stating that the Serb soldiers were helping the Moslem women and children (as they had done in Kosovo, where women were fleeing the KLA prostitute rings and trying to reach the Serb lines).

ICC breaks its own Constitution: Case void

The ICC was set up by the Rome Treaty. Under its own Article 55 on Rights of Persons during an Investigation, section 1 (d) it states that a person:

"(d) Shall not be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention, and shall not be

deprived of his or her liberty except on such grounds and in accordance

with such procedures as are established in this Statute."

Why, then was Slobodan Milosevic illegally kidnapped from the Republic of Serbia and taken to the ICC, where he lost his life under illegal detention, which went against every fibre of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia at the time? Why does the ICC not have a massive compensation case pending against it to Milosevic's family?

Under Article 67 on Rights of the Accused, Section 1 (b), it states that a person has the right:

"(b) To have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defence and

to communicate freely with counsel of the accused's choosing in

confidence;"

Why then did Dr. Radovan Karadzic not have enough time to prepare himself, given that the prosecution submitted 415.000 pages to the trial since October? Who can read 2,766 pages a day and adequately prepare their defence? Given this, the case is void.

What was Dr. Karadzic fighting against?

For one, Osama Bin Laden is the proud holder of a Bosnian passport, according to an independent publication (Dani) which claimed that the Bosnian Embassy in Vienna "granted a passport to bin Laden in 1993" stating then that "High Moslem officials of the Bosnian Foreign Ministry agreed that (the destruction of these files) was of a high priority" and further that "the Bosnian government confirmed it had granted citizenship and passport to a Tunisian-born senior aide of bin Laden in 1997".

What was bin Laden doing? Establishing an Albanian operation, setting up terrorist camps (in Bocina Donja near Maglaj in Bosnia), training Islamic fighters to carry out terrorist attacks on Serbs and funding the NLA in Macedonia, which controlled the drugs trade through the region. Moreover, Alija Izetbegovic failed to live up to his commitments under the Dayton Agreement (to remove all foreign Moslem fighters from Bosnia), for large numbers of foreign Mujaheddin remained in the area after the agreement.

And Dr. Radovan Karadzic is in the dock?

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

http://www.moscowtopnews.com/?area=postView&id=1954

NATO Chief Arrives in Moscow To Have Russia Involved in Afghan War

Front page / Russia / Politics

17.12.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru

 

Pages: 1

 

 

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen arrived in Moscow on December 16 for an official visit. The official asked Russia to support NATO troops with arms, military training and a new additional railway channel to maintain the troops in Afghanistan. Rasmussen said prior to his visit to Moscow that he would like to see Russia's further participation in training NATO's military contingent in Afghanistan. He also said that Russia could provide arms and other military equipment for security forces in Afghanistan. In other words, the NATO bloc, which does not seem to be able to cope with Afghan Mujahedeens, would like to receive AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns, guns, grenade launchers, shoulder-carried air defense systems, artillery, armored vehicles, An-32 cargo planes and helicopters. There is nothing surprising about the fact that NATO needs the Russian arms. They are reliable, better and easier to use. The weapons, which NATO troops use, do not function very well under extreme conditions of Afghan natural environment. What may Russia gain from this cooperation with NATO? Does the alliance intend to have Russia involved in its endless war? The USA had a similar experience in the beginning of the 1950s when the nation found itself involved in the war in Vietnam. Pavel Zolotarev, an expert with the Institute for the USA and Canada said in an interview with Pravda.Ru that Russia was interested in establishing cooperation with NATO. "Americans and their allies need to stay in Afghanistan. We only need to help them in a reasonable way, and we should of course sell our weapons to them. When the alliance needs something from us, it is being very nice with Russia, but if there is an intense situation, like it was during the Caucasian war last year, NATO does not want to speak to us at all. "Americans and their allies need to stay in Afghanistan, because the situation there will be destabilized otherwise. We've learned this lesson in 1979 – what happens in Afghanistan if it is left without attention. If Taliban and al-Qaeda win the fight there, it will affect the situation in Russia's Caucasus in the worst way," the expert said. Konstantin Sivkov, the first vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, believes that Rasmussen's requests automatically imply Russia's direct participation in the Afghan war. "How can we assist them in training the allied troops? Russian troops will have to be sent there for that. If they manage to have Russia involved, the Russian administration will be disgraced both inside and outside of the country. This is extremely dangerous taking into consideration what may happen in the Muslim world. The war in Afghanistan is the war against the whole Afghan nation. US officials recently said that there were probably a hundred of al-Qaeda members left. What do they mean by 'international terrorism' then? Afghanistan does not pose a danger to Russia. This country needs our food shipments, and they are ready to be in commercial relations with our country," the expert said. Sergey Balmasov Pravda.Ru

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/17-12-2009/111201-nato-0

The Show Goes On

The Show Goes On

by Nebojsa Malic, March 06, 2010

The show trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic continued on March 1 before the Hague Inquisition, but also in the media. Both in the West and in the Muslim world, Karadzic and the Bosnian Serbs have been convicted by the press of vilest atrocities long ago. One could almost feel the frustration of the commentators and reporters that there even has to be a trial in the first place, so strong are their convictions about Karadzic and the Bosnian War. Evidence? Facts? True believers need no such things. Nor do the Hague prosecutors, apparently.

Challenging Cherished Myths

Reading through the coverage of the trial inevitably reveals that reporters and editors aren't so much telling what happened in the courtroom, but trying to argue with Karadzic's defense. Take, for example, Ian Traynor of the Guardian, who "reports" from the trial as if he were the prosecutor rebutting Karadzic's opening statement. Other journalists took a similar approach, typically presenting the accusations as indisputable facts then saying that Karadzic "denied" war crimes.

He did, in fact, challenge the Official Truth about several key episodes of the Bosnian War, saying that there was no genocide in Srebrenica, and that Sarajevo was divided rather than besieged. The Bosnian Muslims, he argued, used civilian buildings as fortifications, and often shot at their own people for propaganda purposes. Moreover, he also claimed the war was a result of Muslim desire to establish dominion over all of Bosnia, driven by a radical Islamic agenda. He says he has evidence to back all of this up. If he does, that is more than the prosecutors, the Tribunal itself, or the media have produced so far.

Consider a feature (video) by Al-Jazeera reporter Rageh Omar, which opened with the images of the grieving Muslims at the Srebrenica memorial and a video montage implying that the Bosnian Serb forces rounded up eight thousand or more Muslim civilians and executed them in broad daylight. Yet actual forensic evidence has found around 3800 bodies, 3600 of which were men aged 15 to 65 — legal age of conscription into the Bosnian (Muslim) Army. And less than five hundred had blindfolds or bindings, indicating executions. But the ICTY and the media continue to claim that the Serbs killed eight thousand people, and declare this to be genocide, based on questionable testimonies and badly mishandled evidence.

A Different Tune

The very same day Karadzic appeared in a Hague courtroom, one of his former adversaries was detained at Heathrow airport. Ejup Ganic, once the right hand of Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic who styled himself the "vice-president" of Bosnia, was arrested by British police acting on a Serbian warrant.

Belgrade is charging Ganic with responsibility in the May 1992 ambush of the retreating Yugoslav Army column in Sarajevo. The crumbling federal army had made a deal with Bosnian and Macedonian authorities to depart unhindered. Izetbegovic's forces violated that deal, and the resulting massacres of retreating Army columns ensured the bitter enmity of many Army officers, who then joined Karadzic's nascent military.

One would think, then, that an opportunity to examine these events in a court of law would be greeted with enthusiasm by the politicians and the press that keep talking about the need for "justice, truth and reconciliation" in the Balkans. Yet the response in the very same media that have covered the Karadzic trial with so much zeal and emotion this week has been completely different when it came to Ganic.

The Economist, for example, dismissed the ambush as a matter of "forty rifles" and bemoaned the damage allegedly done to "Serbia's attempts to rejoin the European fold" by "dragging up the past." Others focused not on what Ganic may or may not have done back in the 1990s, but on the "tensions" and "muddled ties" his arrest may cause, "feeding Balkans hysteria" in a year when Bosnia is having a general election.

What are they implying, that the Karadzic trial has no effect on Balkans relations, or tensions or ties? That the incessant propaganda about the Serbs as genocidal aggressors is good, perfectly normal and desirable while a mere mention that a Muslim could have been responsible for an atrocity is a cause for panic? Talk about a partisan press…

Just Cause?

The Tribunal and the media maintain that the Bosnian Serbs, and Karadzic as their leader, sought to occupy Bosnia and destroy Croat and Muslim populations as part of some grand conspiracy to create an ethnically pure "Greater Serbia." Even a cursory look at the facts indicates that these charges are absurd. Alija Izetbegovic never denied being an Islamic revolutionary. He openly stated that he would "sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia." Karadzic may have mishandled the Bosnian Serb war effort, both strategically and tactically, but there is no doubt that it was the Muslims who sought dominion over the Serbs and Croats, not the other way around.

One of the things Karadzic said in his opening statement was that the Bosnian Serb cause was "just and holy." He didn't actually call the war itself holy — though the distinction escaped many reporters. ICTY translations have been notoriously unreliable. For example, a phrase attributed to Karadzic — "marble evidence" — does not actually exist in Serbian. He could have called evidence concrete, but never marble. So it isn't surprising that Karadzic's description of his "holy" cause — freedom from a Muslim government bent on dominance — is being miscast as some sort of crusade. The Tribunal and the media have twisted words before.

Exercise in Futility

Given that the countries sponsoring the Tribunal have also played a major role in supporting Izetbegovic's drive for a centralized Bosnian state – before, during and after the war — and occupying a portion of Serbia to carve out an "independent," ethnically cleansed "state" of Kosovo, there is no chance of Radovan Karadzic getting anything even remotely resembling a fair trial. Too much political capital has been invested in the Bank of Collective Serbian Guilt for the investors to admit the error of their ways now.

But the persecution of Radovan Karadzic and other Serb leaders isn't going to help the Empire any. Least of all will it inspire gratitude in the Muslim world, a goal several policymakers have openly alluded to in the past. Back in the 1990s, to an Empire in search of a cause it seemed like a no-brainer: claim a "genocide" through hysterical propaganda about the evil Serbs slaughtering innocent Muslims, step in to save the day, and emerge as a knight in shining armor. Over and over the Western leaders, from Bill Clinton to Tony Blair, have repeated this trope. The world's Muslims didn't buy it. Instead, the Muslim public opinion chose to regard the West as an evil, conniving force that stood idly by and watched the slaughter.

Ironically, that was one of the major talking points of the whole hysterical propaganda effort.

http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2010/03/05/the-show-goes-on/