The UN goes schizo over Kosovo

About 2,000 people marched through the northern town of Podujevo, where Remi as regional commander saw heavy fighting against Serb forces, to voice anger at the verdict and the U.N. mission. Some branded U.N. officials as occupiers. "Foreigners sentenced them as war criminals ... but for us they have been and always will be liberators and fighters for our freedom," former guerrilla Ramadan Demolli told the crowd, which chanted KLA slogans and carried red-black Albanian flags.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030716/wl_nm/serbiamontenegro_kosovo_dc_2

The UN is fucking things up royally with these war crimes trial and with the Liberia issue. The KLA was fighting Milosevic. Don't they understand that?

I don't claim to know anything about Kosovo. It was before my time (politically, I only really started getting political around 2000), and I've never taken the time to read up on it.

However, saying that people should not be tried for war crimes simply because they were fighting Milosevic is basically saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," or "the ends justify the means"... Both of which have a measure of truth to them, but only a measure. I find both concepts ideologically and idealistically repulsive, myself.

It was this argument that led us to support Castro vs. Batista, bin Laden vs. USSR, Pinochet vs. Allende, and Hussein vs. Iran. It's a flawed theory and it comes back to bite us in the ass. Equal treatment under the law means just that--even if we agree with some things they did, or agree with what they were fighting for or who they were fighting, we cannot exempt them from the same standards of behavior we hold others to.

Anyway, like I said, I dunno nothing about Kosovo, so flame away, everybody, if you like. It'll be educational I'm sure. :)

see "The Hague Invasion Act"

...your reaction typifies the World view of many Americans.

The worlds nations aren't divided into 'goodies' and 'baddies'.....even here in Australia (and probably in the US) there are people who'd jump at the opportunity to commit horrific acts given the sort of chances a war provides. The fact that the KLA were on the 'winning' side should not make their members immune from prosecution.

Whilst Milosevic definitely lead a corrupt and vicious regime, there were those amongst the KLA (and earlier the Croats and Bosnians) who were equally guilty of war crimes.