Serbian Orthodoxy, Karadzic and nuance

For a war criminal in hiding, he led a fairly open life; see http://www.dragandabic.com/ for a portrait of Dr. Karadžić, alias Dabić, the renowned Chinese herbalist and proverbialist. Among his "personally selected" apophthegms:

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.

Our sorrowful starets will be shampooing the guano from his plush shag for many years to come.

The church doesn't always judge people as the world does. St Dionysios of Zakynthos hid his own brother's murderer from the police.

Having said that, I don't think he "was" the monster you believe him to be - a flawed leader, but not a monster: though I'm not surprised you think that, given the sheer level of vilification directed at him and his cause over the years, not to mention all the lies and distortions of a tragedy that was quite bad enough as it was.

Anyway, the world's media has certainly judged him, and his captors already have, but none of "our" judgements are, ultimately, the ones that matter. And whatever happened "during" the war, he certainly did a great deal to try and avoid it, efforts which were finally sabotaged by the American Ambassador, Warren Zimmerman.

Probably the fairest portrayal of where he was coming from that's come out in the last few days is Srdja Trifkovic's article here: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=673 which is quite thorough about the origins of the war at least, though there is of course more that can be said.

I find it very hard to take people like Holbroke, though, still coming out with old propaganda that's now "known" to be untrue, like the 300,000 supposed fatalities, while the official figures of the tribunal he praises put it at 100,000 on all sides, half of them military, and a Bosnian commission even less http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-face-of-evil.html

That's maybe a tenth of the people now said to have died as a result of the Iraq invasion.

Actually, regarding his alleged guilt, what Karadjic is supposed to have done has shifted about just as much as Bush’s reasons for being in Iraq, especially if you look at some of the things that were alleged about what his people were doing back in the early 1990s. I still think that almost all of it “can” be answered point by point, but it’s a major business, after so many years of vilification, and so many assumptions in everyone's mind to overturn. The trouble is, “so” much mud has been thrown at the Serbs (in the West at least) that it’s going to stick whatever happens. Far too many politicians, countries, institutions, journalists and media outlets have a vested interest in their guilt. For a very interesting (and extremely shocking) account of “just” how badly the journalistic profession as a whole behaved, over the years (and also "why" so many of them believed or acted as they did) I do recommend “Media Cleansing” by Peter Brock http://www.amazon.com/Media-Cleansing-Dirty-Reporting-Journalism/dp/1882383303

John Laughland’s “Travesty” about the trial of Milosevic is worth a read too, if you really want the other side: http://www.amazon.com/Travesty-Slobodan-Milosevic-Corruption-International/dp/0745326358 - not that it’s directly connected to Karadjic’s case, as he and Milosevic never got on, but it does expose the real procedures of the Hague Tribunal.

BTW, I meant to ask about your earlier post, though I got sidetracked by trying to research Srebrenica accounts and trying to work out who to believe. (The numbers certainly don’t add up. But it “is” all extremely depressing). But I meant to ask this. Are you “completely” sure of who the victims were in the warehouse you were writing about? You might be right, I know, but in Kravica in particular there had been a very brutal raid by Srebrenica’s Muslim army (led by the nightmarish Nasir Oric, who openly “videotaped” his some of his kills) on the Serbian Christmas in January 6th 1993, in which hundreds of Serbian civilians were killed as they were celebrating the feast. Are you “quite” sure about who the victims were in this instance? You might be right, and the bodies were the result of later reprisals against captured men of the Srebrenica Muslim army, but for all I know they might be (as their location suggests) earlier victims “of” that army, or casualties of any of the skirmishes and raids in between. The whole region seems to be littered with victims of three years of skirmish and piecemeal massacre, most of them (usually elderly) Serb civilians (it was a largely Serb region before the war) and too many people are lumping them all together.

Oric’s conviction, by the way, was overturned this very month by the Hague Tribunal. Not that he had “ever” been given any jail time – just community service in Bosnia. Which says something about what that court really is, and what sort of trial that Karadjic will get.

BTW, can I suggest you look at this too? http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2008/07/having-to-argue-obvious.html It links to some of the very few honest and thoughtful articles that “have” appeared these last few days, about what the Bosnian Serbs and their leaders were actually guilty “of”, and also the whole question of “innocent until proved guilty”, which the media have “always” ignored in this case, and, one can see, are “still” ignoring.

(Sorry about the repeat of my last message just above: I kept getting a sort of error message when I tried to post, but obviously more than one attempt got through after all.)