Mladic, Dresden, Hamburg and Iraq

One of the key charges against Mladic is that he was ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. By contrast the Kosovo Liberation Army, who killed thousands of Serbs in their own bout of ethnic cleansing, are seen as liberators in the West. Indeed so unsavoury were the KLA that until 1998 they were proscribed by the West as a terrorist organisation. However, like other groups around the world it suddenly became convenient for the West to support the KLA.

To my mind the Serbs had no option but to defend themselves against KLA aggression. Did they go too far in their fight? I don't know but I intend to look into the conflict a lot more deeply because it seems to me, that the West is increasingly picking targets that suit the West regardless of the actual rights and wrongs of the situation. We are in a new and worrying era of imperialism. Just look at the way we are bombing Libya. How many innocents are we killing there and for what?

To put things into perspective since we invaded Iraq in 2003 according to Iraq Body Count over 100,000 civilians have been killed as a result of our action. Whatever anybody's view of the Iraq situation it cannot be described as a defensive action. Will we see Western leaders appearing in the Hague in years to come? I doubt it, because we will remain in control of the process.

In 1943 50,000 people were killed in Hamburg when the Allies blitzed the city with incendiary bombs. In February 1945, when Germany was already on its knees, an estimated 25,000 people were killed in a similar raid on Dresden. Were these war crimes? Were these actions really necessary? Maybe, maybe not. But if we had lost the war you can bet the Germans would have put those responsible on trial for war crimes.