Too right it was an error, Perry.

A largeish bunch of Djindjic's suspected assassins or friends of assassins [such as around fifteen people] should probably be whacked sooner rather than later if peace is to have a chance, I'm afraid.

Perry.....the phrase,I beleive,you are hunting for is "pre-emptive strike".

I agree entirely. The question must now be posed: will the ICC become a permanent and transnational impediment to intrastate reform and democratization? I think we can all guess the answer.

As an historian (and not a lawyer) I have always been deeply disturbed by the argument that the Nuremberg trials should be made a model for international war crimes. What would Rwandans have chosen for themselves: an effective military response to genocide on their soil, or a bunch of foreign lawyers and jurists putting a few of the murderers behind bars years later?

At least the ad hoc war crimes tribunals had the advantage of being "temporary", though hardly swift. Now that the ICC is open every day for business the expansion of what constitutes a war criminal will proceed apace. No wonder the US wants nothing to with this Euro-inspired lawyer make work scheme.

To argue that Serbia should have been de-nazified the way Germany was is to say that it should be under military occupation. It should indeed, but to imply that the Serbs could have tried him for his crimes outside Serbia (and that also means Kosovo, which has been legally independent since October 1991) is to ignore that most Serbs do not and will recognize his responsibility for those crimes.

The real problems with the ICTY is that

— it allows Milosevic to mouth propaganda under the pretense of conducting cross-examinations;

— given that its very existence negates the national sovereignty of the countries involved, it should have been competent only for the crimes committed by the aggressors : the Serbs in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, and the Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina.