Radovan Karadzic sacked

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]In my mind the ones who commit the actions are more guilty than the one who suggests it , we all have a free will .

It was not suggested, it was ordered. A soldier has to follow orders. For sure orders against the law are not to be followed but we know from numerous examples that they are followed for more reasons than we can debate here.

It´s naive to think that you can disobey an order without ending up next to the ones in the massgraves during a mass execution.

It´s one of these "you´re either with us or against us" things.

The bosnian serbs have no exclusive right on such things as similar incidents with US troops in Iraq have shown where innocent people were killed in retaliation for IED´s they have never placed. For sure this is something very different to ethnic cleansing but the basic priciple is very similar. You are given an order, you follow the order even if the order is illegal. Such things do happen very often in areas of war as the the reality around you is so surreal that it´s hard to judge what is right or wrong for the grunt on the ground. That´s why the role of superiors in such scenarios is so important. They are the ones who have to judge what is right or wrong and have to behave accordingly. If they decide wrong the chain of command usually results in wrongdoings of their men aswell.

In another news:

7 Bosnian Serbs guilty of genocide in Srebrenica

Quote[/b] ]SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The Bosnian war crimes court convicted seven Bosnian Serbs of genocide Tuesday in the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica and handed down prison sentences ranging from 38 to 42 years. Four others were acquitted.

Issuing their first sentence related to Europe's worst massacre since World War II, judges at the war crimes court sent three of the former policemen to jail for 42 years, another three away for 40 years and one for 38 years.

The verdict comes as Serbia prepares to extradite former Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic — also indicted for genocide in Srebrenica — to the separate U.N. war crimes tribunal in Netherlands. Karadzic was arrested last week in Belgrade after hiding for over a decade.

The seven men were found guilty of killing more than 1,000 captured Bosnian Muslim men and boys after Bosnian Serb forces overran the eastern town of Srebrenica — a U.N.-protected enclave for civilians during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

The seven hunted down Muslims who tried to escape the Serb roundup. Many victims surrendered after being told they would be safe but instead about 1,000 were brought to a warehouse and killed inside by automatic rifles and hand grenades.

The Bosnian court said their crimes were part of a widespread, systematic attack against Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, carried out by Serb forces "with a joint plan to annihilate" the group.

In all, about 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were slaughtered at Srebrenica, a massacre the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, has ruled was genocide.

Widows and mothers of the victims were in the courtroom when the verdict was read.

"Nothing can ease my pain," said Munira Subasic, a woman from Srebrenica who lost her son in the massacre. Her son's body has never been found, although over 3,200 other victims have been found in nearby mass graves, identified through DNA analysis and reburied.

Subasic said, despite the sentences issued Tuesday, the Bosnian Serb forces did succeed in establishing a Bosnian Serb ministate "on the blood of our children." Srebrenica is now part of the Bosnian Serb ministate, Republika Srpska, created during the war.

Bakira Hasecic, the head of the Women Victims of War association, said she was sorry that Bosnia had no death penalty "so that their mothers, daughters and wives can experience the pain the mothers of their victims are experiencing."

Milenko Trifunovic, Brano Dzinic and Aleksandar Radovanovic received the 42-year sentences, while Milos Stupar, Slobodan Jakovljevic and Branislav Medan each got 40 years and Petar Mitrovic received 38 years.

The judges acquitted Velibor Maksimovic, Dragisa Zivanovic, Milovan Matic and Miladin Stevanovic, concluding the prosecutor failed to prove beyond doubt that they took part in the war crimes.

The court concluded that Trifunovic and Radovanovic were in front of the warehouse shooting at prisoners, while Dzinic threw hand grenades at them. Jakovljevic, Medan and Mitrovic guarded the rear of the warehouse to prevent the detainees from escaping.

Mitrovic also fired his automatic rifle at the detainees. Stupar was their commander and knew what his subordinates were doing.

The panel of judges concluded that all of them perpetrated these acts with genocidal intent.

The Serb troops were led by genocide fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic. Along with Mladic, Karadzic is accused of masterminding the Srebrenica genocide and faces 11 war crimes charges in The Hague.

Yesterday there was a big protest of Karadzic fans in Belgrad where 15.000 people united and gathered to demand the release of Karadzic. The protest was organized by ultra-nationalistic parties of Serbia. They compared Karadzic with Nelson Mandela. What a joke. Some people are more than just stupid.

Despite the organized protests Karadzic was transported to Den Haag this morning and will be taken to court.

[baddo 0]

3.5 years is plenty of time to say .. wait .. i think this is wrong.

Soldiers have a duty to humanity to refuse to carry out orders they believe to be wrong...Ehren Watada for example , but on the other boot most miliatary enforce the rule that refusal to carry out orders can result in court martial .. catch 22

But if the orders fit with your ideals then you will carry them out willingly .

That isn't quite true. Soldiers have the duty to fulfil orders and by the rules they were obeying (local Positive Law). Quoting wikipedia "Law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society.". At that time the law they were obeying said to fulfil those orders otherwise they would face harsh consequences. And that those actions were legal and necessary!

Of course one can argue about Natural Law as it was even applied in Nuremberg Trials to condemn the Nazist Laws. But that isn't the point here.

The point is, a soldier doesn't care about all this, he needs to care about his family safety and his own. And of course, one can not disregard the role of politicians and generals. These are the ones to blame. These are the ones with the inflated rhetorical speech and the menaces to the soldiers' lifes if they don't comply. They indeed are the war criminals.

But of course there are butchers everywhere in the hierarchy, from the foot soldier to the commanders. And that also has to be denounced and judged.

I was told in the Finnish Defence Forces that if an officer is giving me an order which results in me breaking our laws, I will have the right to object.

But if the officer still insists that I must do what he tells me to do, then I should ask the officer to give me the order in writing and that the officer is then responsible to do so.

After that I can then fulfill the order and also prove with the document the officer gave me that I did it because an officer told me to do it and not because of my own will, and that I objected the order.

I did not check what our legislation specifically says about it. That's the basic instruction I was given in basic training.

Wikipedia tells me that I could not be charged of being insubordinate if the order meant that I would have to break our law in order to fulfill it. Then again I did not read our legislation regarding this. It does make sense; our laws are what should define what we can legally do in our country. Can the military officer make me a new law on the spot whenever he or she thinks that there is a need?

This actually brings me to a good point: often the soldiers are not self-educated on this. It is unclear to them, like to me, where goes the line (in our legislations) what the officers can tell them to do and what they can't tell them to do.

I do think they can not ignore our laws or create new laws on the spot when they see the need. But how much that wheighs in a battlefield where your life can end to either the bullet of the enemy or to the bullet of that officer.

There is a line in our heads which we do not cross no matter what our officers tells us. Where that line is is not known to me or to you, we would find out only if we are tested in a real situation.

It must also be noted that to me as a citizen of my country, our local laws are more important than any "international" law. This is definitely the way it has to be. Our local law can tell me to obey an international law, but if it doesn't then I can ignore the "international" law. A law becomes "international" only when several countries agree to enforce it. And the "international" law becomes your law only if your country agrees to use it. I think this is often not understood or people just don't think about it at all. People often talk about "international" law for example when they talk about copyrights. That law does not exist to you until your country has agreed to use it.

[-Snafu- 77]

[b said:

Quote[/b] ]It was not suggested, it was ordered. A soldier has to follow orders. For sure orders against the law are not to be followed but we know from numerous examples that they are followed for more reasons than we can debate here.

It´s naive to think that you can disobey an order without ending up next to the ones in the massgraves during a mass execution.

It´s one of these "you´re either with us or against us" things.

The bosnian serbs have no exclusive right on such things as similar incidents with US troops in Iraq have shown where innocent people were killed in retaliation for IED´s they have never placed. For sure this is something very different to ethnic cleansing but the basic priciple is very similar. You are given an order, you follow the order even if the order is illegal. Such things do happen very often in areas of war as the the reality around you is so surreal that it´s hard to judge what is right or wrong for the grunt on the ground. That´s why the role of superiors in such scenarios is so important. They are the ones who have to judge what is right or wrong and have to behave accordingly. If they decide wrong the chain of command usually results in wrongdoings of their men aswell.

 

[Black Sphere 0]

I will just add that if there weren't the UN 'safe zone' or whatever (as was everything but a 'safe zone' ) in Srebrenica (which why civilians stayed in town and not fled or retreat before the siege) and the Duch UN troops in there, which nicely shit their pants and dishonored themselves by handing over those civilians to the Serb butchers, and which in my eyes are as guilty for the massacre there as the Serbs. If there weren't the arms embargo imposed from EU and USA on Yougoslavia, but in fact on Slovenians, Croats and Muslims as Serbs were armed to the teeth with JLA weapondry and in all ways fully supported by the Yugoslav Army, at the beggining of the conflict(s), later there wouldn't be such a genocidal acts as the massacre in Srebrenica e.g. the ethnic clensing, or at least very very few and in much much smaller proportions. So, sorry for the next words but we all, and especially the eurpoeans, at least now should had some dignity and stfu on that matter, and not being like righteous and smart asses now when thousands and thousands of graves are now down there, quite many as a direct consequence of the eurpoean totally wrongly posed involvement into that sad ordeal.

Being triumphant in Europe now when Karadzic is aprehended is a pervert hipocricy of the worst kind, as is Hague War Tribunal nothing but a bandage on Europe's moral(ity); it does NOTHING for the nations being involved in that war, the less some kind of catharsis, so nothing is 'healed'. Except as I said the europen morality ...