Ratko Mladic

Strangely enough I am in Srebrenica in three weeks time. First time for about thirty years. Be interesting to hear the views there but definitely crimes to rival the holocaust.
 
The views of his fans appear to be that he is an innocent hero, unaware of the atrocities performed by his troops, as was the other bastard they locked away for 40 years. I can only assume that he was a pretty piss-poor 'commander', then, if he didn't give the orders, wasn't present when the mass murders occurred, and wasn't aware of them at any time afterwards. If you're so innocent, why have you run and hidden under the skirts of the Serbs, instead of instantly court-martialling the offending troops for not abiding by the rules of war?

As for those families whose husbands and sons he murdered, they wonder why it's taken so damn long. And even now he's a weakling coward, sheltering behind being too unwell to stand trial. I don't think he inquired as to the ability of the men he captured as to whether they were unwell enough to be shot, did he? And I couldn't believe my ears when one commentator referred to him as a 'broken old man' - he's only 68, ffs, not 90! I don't care how many strokes he's had (if he has) - I don't care how old or 'unwell' mass murderers are. They deserve the same mercy they visited upon their victims: none.
 
and yet you suggested we forgive Bin Laden krizon :)

There was some wishy washy garbage on a thread here that " good and evil" "isnt that simple" and so on. Usual Guardian reader crap

Wars happen, rightly or wrongly but when the intentions switch to genocide then evil is the only word that fits, whether it be Bin laden, hitler, pol pot, Mao or the above
 
I WHAT??? Cut and paste that evidence immediately!

I don't believe in 'forgiveness'. It probably is Divine, if you believe in a Divinity, which I don't. 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us' - don't see how that fits with 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth' in the same book of rules. We're treated to the mumbo-jumbo of cod psychiatrists saying that if you forgive your aggressor, you free yourself of the toxin of anger/hate/resentment and can 'move on'. Bollocks. All you're really doing is deciding not to think about whatever the event was and saying that it no longer has the power to harm you. You're not actually saying that the action taken - rape/mutilation/maiming/killing of a loved one - is forgiven, as in of no importance. You're just deciding that your mind can be put to better use than thinking of it all the time. But to say that you've 'forgiven' the perpetrator of the horror is delusion.

I believe in retribution in proportion to intent. If I kill someone in self-defence, that's all it is. Get on with life. If I kill someone in France's version of a crime of passion - pushed beyond endurance by a brutal spouse or domineering parent (think Lizzie Borden) - set me a reasonable amount of time out of society, to cool down and rehabilitate myself. If I set about killing, directly or by order, thousands or millions of people on the basis of their gender, race, belief, geography - I'm clearly nuts, because this is not logical behaviour, and need to be removed forever from society. Lock me up or shoot me - there is no morality that's superior to either course of action - because I've shown that given the power, I'm an irrational, psychopathic megalomaniac who'll abuse it unchecked.

Killing is part of natural behaviour. We kill billions of times a day, all over the globe, for food, for example, and without thinking twice about boiling dogs and lobsters alive, fishing, trapping, shooting, and slitting throats. We abort babies if they present a threat to the mother's health and enough societies still leave their baby girls out to die (India, China, to name but two we know about) in rubbish tips or fields, because they represent a financial drain on their families. (Birth control seems to be viewed as a slander upon men's ability to spread their seed.) We still don't quite know what to do about euthanasia (bring it on, I say, 'cos I want that for myself if I ever get old and frail enough), and we haven't any qualms about going into wars to right wrongs for ourselves or other humans.

What isn't natural, though, is killing each other based not on aggression or attack from the other side, but on picking a fight on the grounds of the other's 'difference'. I'm Protestant, you're Catholic - boom-boom. I'm a Muslim, you're a Jew - I'll kill you. You're Roma, I'm Aryan - I'm going to exterminate you. You're a pesky Kurd - prepare to die. You're a Hutu, I'm a Tutsi. And on and on, and on. That is irrational and not natural behaviour. A lion doesn't kill a zebra because it doesn't like its stripes - it kills it because it wants a meal. Thus, Mladic stepped out of the rules of combat into where he just didn't like the zebras' stripes, and he had them butchered just because of that. Ergo, he is clearly irrational and needs to be put away. I don't care if he's shot or caged for life - I don't feel any particular morality attaches to either retributive action - he just needs to be shown no mercy, or, in a word, forgiveness.
 
Last edited:
Well Bin laden was probably the nearest we have had to someone who strongly believed and proposed the extermination of certain races or religous groupings since the nazis. Given the resources, he would have delighted in doing so. of that there is no doubt

From the Guardian... this is about someone who orchestrated a genodide of up to 500000

Bashing Omar al-Bashir is a popular pastime in progressive circles, not least in the conscience-flaunting milieus favoured by actor George Clooney and other celebrity campaigners. Sudan's president, demonised by the UN over Darfur, pre-judged by the international criminal court's chief prosecutor and ostracised by western governments, makes an easy target. America always needs bogeymen and Bashir fits the bill: big, bothersome, bad-tempered, black, Arab and Muslim.
Click to expand...

Unbelievable...
 
Last edited:
Well, it does seem that much of the left has completely lost its moral compass in recent times. But you are right in so far as its unfair to tar all with same brush.

Its not just a left/right argument these days. The compass is all over the place, which is good in many ways

I know The guardian is an easy target with some of its bigotted and simpleton writers (its sister paper The observer still maintains high standards though) but sometimes you just have to read this stuff with awe and amazement
 
Last edited:
I'm waiting for you to copy & paste where I said Osama bin Laden should be 'forgiven', Clivex...

I don't read The Grauniad, although you seem to do so to a surprising extent for someone who so despises it. Why is that?

I don't see bin Laden even in the same race as Mao or Pot, for starters. There were two bastards who killed millions of their own people, simply for daring to think differently and to belong to a different social caste (i.e. bourgeois, educated, erudite in Mao's case). Genocidists of Classic class. Bin Laden had great pretensions and achieved a quick show of renowned horror through his agents, but what went on in Mao's enslavement camps over many years was appallingly brutal, and we may never know the full extent of Pot's brutality. We also have little idea of what the Jong-Il family has been up to in North Korea's concentration camps for dissidents or 'others', although we can guess. And you cannot underplay the wickedness of tribal warfare in Africa, where for being this or that tribe, you can be shot (if the aggressor is merciful), mutilated, raped for days on end into pregnancy, burned alive - bin Laden never espoused such sadism towards his enemy. He pointed to who he felt was the enemy of Islam quite clearly - whether 'errant' Muslim or not - and gave fair warning. Nothing to be proud of there, of course, but not on the grand scale you presumptively credit to him, Clivex.
 
Krizon..i was teasing abit but having re read that post...maybe thats unfair

The links to bigoted articles to the Guardian are pretty widespread on the net

the only reason that Bin Laden didnt enact genocide was because he didnt have the ability to do so. AQ strongly believes in the extermination of "non believers" and certain races. That is not doubted. On a wideworld scale their beliefs are the most dangerous since the nazis (and similar in many ways)
 
Watching this 'is he fit enough to stand trial, isn't it' makes me think why it ever got to the stage where that is the question? What did the UN do when the conflict was on going? Nothing. The whole point of the UN(League of Nations) was to stop conflicts such as these happening, but I believe it has a shameful record in doing any such thing, or intervening when the whole world has known what has/had been happening.
 
Grey said:
It's back on the tourist map, Roddy?
Click to expand...

Not tourist,just buying raspberries Grey. Before the troubles they had often told me they were arch enemies. But Tito had them all working together and it didn`t seem possible. The Roman Empire ( the double headed eagle was split along the Drina river) due to Admin problems , and then these people sort of evolved into being enemies.
I found them all decent people
 
G-G: yes, the UN is pretty useless at what it's paid to do. Billions of quid to have the 'peace-keepers' merely observe and step aside from conflict. This and the Rwandan savageries being two outstanding examples, the Congo following its independence from Belgium being another. Somalia more recently, where again they have failed to prevent the sectarian rapine and slaughter, which has been on a massive scale. I don't see the point of the UN, to be honest, any more than I see the point of the EU. The EU seems to have grown into a bureaucratic monster from the old Common Market, which was originally a trading organisation between European countries, dumping trade with places like New Zealand in order to boost Welsh lamb and butter exports. From then, to the mad creature we have today, interfering in every nook and cranny in national life in order to try to subsume all members to One Size Fits All.
 
Last edited:
The origin of the UN was in the League Of Nations who were started by countries/people who having sufferd the two WW desperately wanted to try and prevent any more such conflicts and the annilihation of races.
I remember reading an account of one UN soldier during Serbia/Bosnia conflict where a Serb slit the throat of a 9 year old boy in front of them and taunted that there was nothing they could do about it, which there wasn't. Totally pointless if there is no peace to keep in the first instance.
 
Yes, that's right - I'm always reminded of a wonderful Ronald Searle cartoon, where a school outing is being shown the main chamber of the League. The guide has turned to the group and is saying, "And this is the League of Nations - where they fight for peace." Behind her, the room is in full-blown chaos, papers flying everywhere, punches being thrown, teeth bared and noses bloodied.

That's a dreadful story about the little boy, but one I can well believe. Another fiasco was the UN standing by in Lebanon while Israeli fighter jets strafed the airport and shot up pretty much anything else with impunity.

It's another quangofied organisation where no doubt administrators command huge salaries and perks and where, as you say, its role is redundant as you cannot keep a peace which doesn't exist.

To be frank, I think the state of war seems to be a natural condition or part of human life. Since recorded time, not a single day, let alone year, has passed without someone somewhere battering the bejaysus out of someone else. Peace, it appears, is not our most natural state of affairs. You only have to try and form a committee on anything to see egos and biases emerge and clash. Perhaps it's futile to wish for world peace - we (the species) seem to love to go into battle given any reason, however illogical or slender.
 
Last edited:
I should have added born from the League of Friends, but anyway.

There is a 1960s war film in which Robert Mitchum plays a reporter tagging along with an American unit after the D Day landings trying to write why war happens. He doesn't carry a weapon but towards the end of the film a couple of German snipers are picking off the unit one by one, and he has to pick up a rifle and shoot one of the them for the remainder of the unit to get away. At the end of the film he tells a high ranking officer that he knows why men fight; because they like it. Fiction maybe, but it certainly rang as a truism.
 
The UN is useless. usually obsessed solely with slagging off Israel whilst sitting on its hands when it comes to darfur and Sri lanka (two examples)

The "humans rights council" includes amongst others.... Pakistan and Suadi arabia. You couldnt make it up. No civilised country should (and would) give the time of day to those bigoted medieval states

Human prison Cuba another laughable member as is Uganda which is now advocating executing gays. wonderful

The EU serves its main purpose well. Americas superb economic sucdcess over the past century is partly (not wholey) down to a large single market without barriers. Recreating that across europe makes perfect sense.
 
Last edited:
I think you're right (or rather, the premise of the film is right), G-G. It's probably something to do with our very primitive brain (or the primitive part that is still there) in creating our own herds (nations), protecting our stock (ethnicity/community), killing what seems alien to it (Uganda hoping to pass a Bill to kill gay men and women), stock control (killing 'too many' baby girls in Africa, China and India), and other forms of species protectionism. Where we've evolved a little way beyond such basic primeval instincts is that we don't abandon the elderly, the sick, and the physically or mentally disabled to die. (I imagine the Inuit have stopped parking their old geezers out on ice floes to freeze to death.) Otherwise, species protectionism, fractured over basic ethnic differences and then top-dressed with diverging belief systems, seems to be at the base of our love of belligerence, however much we can pretend it's for high-flown moral reasons. It does make us sound as if we really haven't come that far along the evolutionary trail. Not much room for peace, love, happiness...

Herd mentality explains, if not excuses, racial intolerance (whichever way it cuts), then regional/tribal factions, religious/belief splits, latterly political divides, and so on and on. By the time we're done, we can pretty much find any lame reason to kill each other. I wonder if we'll have got past it all by the time the Sun's decaying orbit fritzes Earth to the size of a walnut?
 
Last edited:
Back
Top