Media Explainer Bosnian War Crimes

The recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic, a modern day Hitler for sure, has spawned some stories on the victims of his brutal policies. Of course many thousands of Serbian soldiers who perpetrated the raping of Muslim women and killing of Muslim men and boys. The torturers and rapists are largely still free. Though Karadzic is undoubtedly the most culpable and the highest ranking official during these times, (like Bush is now). He is also largely given credit for much of the architect of these atrocities.
His stooge Milosovic is dead, his brutal general, and the front man for much of the horrors Ratko Mladic is still, sadly at large.

But this blog entry is here specifically to remind our dear readers, that we watched this happening on TV for three years during the Clinton years. (*In case you have not read my blog before just want you to know I am devout progressive thinker, who feels that Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we ever had. Just so you don't think I am dumping on Clinton)

I remember watching in horror for three years on CNN as pictures and stories came back, much as they do today from the Sudan, of horrible atrocities being committed right before the "world's eyes". And my dear beloved Jews, from them silence. Never Again! was suppose to mean something. It didn't, now we must add to the names Bergen Belsen, Auschwitz, Dachau, the names, Sarajevo, Severnica, Gorajde and Kosovo, places where man's inhumanity towards men was allowed to run rampant. We watched and watched as Europe and the US did some hand wringing, and finger pointing, and mostly ignoring the whole affair, the UN did it's usual ineffective 'peacekeeper dance', with some of the most egregious horrors of the war carried out in UN "safe zones" and right under the noses of a UN force that was woefully inadequate for the task at hand, namely stopping the Serbian army and irregulars from their campaign of ethnic cleansing. Until the UN and people like Elie Wiesel and others finally broke through the apathy and implored the world to do something. Only then did Clinton half heartedly and to a chorus of the usual Republican ridicule (his own party) , stir into action , getting NATO into the action, so we would not be going it alone.

IMHO: They should have listened to Gen. Wesley Clark, they would have put things back together faster. But Wesley had a heart, something Republicans like Clinton have little use for. Clinton was going to be more restrained and politically practical.


...
The outbreak of war seemed like a joke to Jasmina, then just 19 years old. She dreamed of being an economist and says she played with her toddler son and baby daughter as if they were toys.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/22/sarajevo.rape/index.html


"Then they started torturing me. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was totally naked and covered in blood, and my sister-in-law was also naked and covered in blood. ... I knew I had been raped, and my sister-in-law, too."

...

"Every day we were raped. Not only in the house -- they would also take us to the front line for the soldiers to torture us. Then again in the house, in front of the children,"




All as we watched... you know, on TV!
MTMIND
Michael Trachtenberg