By Andrew L. Jaffee

Slobodan Milosevic, the last “socialist” leader of Yugoslavia, was found dead today in his prison cell in The Hague. Good riddance. I only have 2 regrets: 1) Milosevic’s trial for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide will never be completed with him in attendance; and, 2) The Hague is very selective about who it goes after — we’ll probably never see trials to find justice for all the communist war criminals now hiding safely in and ruling Russia, for Sudanese Muslims slaughtering 180,000 black Africans, or for Kuwaitis ethnically cleansing 400,000 Palestinians.

Let’s not forget Milosevic’s legacy, after he became president of Serbia in 1990:

Serbia, with a population of 10 million, was the big kid on the block in Yugoslavia – the bully – just as Russians were in the old Soviet Union. Major Serbian bullying got under way in 1991 when the Slovenians declared independence from the Yugoslav federation. Yugoslav forces tried to quell the innate desire for independence, but failed, thank goodness. 100 people were needlessly killed. Slovenia is now free, and a charter member of both NATO and the EU. The Serbs didn’t want that. They wanted to dominate the Slovenes and siphon off their wealth and resources. Yugoslavia wanted to drag all the Balkans down to the lowest common denominator of “socialism” (e.g., centralized power and the enrichment of a chosen few like Slobodan Milosevic and his repulsive wife).

As the Yugoslav/Serbian bullies failed to demolish Slovenia, they turned their attentions to the Croats. Croats aren’t without sin. Some helped Hitler in WWII. No group is without sin, but Croats still deserve self-determination. Starting in 1991, the Yugoslav/Serb bullies tried to quell Croatia’s bid for independence. Both Serbs and Croats committed war crimes in the ensuing struggle, and are paying for their sins. But the Croats finally won their independence, thank goodness.

Not satisfied with trying to quell the autonomous urges of two nations, the Serbs turned their wrath against Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, where they kicked their genocidal intentions into high gear. Serbs murdered 250,000 Bosnian citizens. The Serbs killed 7,000 Muslim boys and men in a single incident at Srebrenica. This isn’t conjecture. This is fact. A former Bosnian Serb army commander, Dragan Obrenovic, confessed to taking part in the massacre. Serbia-Montenegro’s president apologized (admitted guilt) to the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina for atrocities committed by Serbs during the 1992-1995 war. I admire his integrity for such a step. This proves not all Serbs are guilty of anything.

Failing to quell the free aspirations of a third nation, the Serbs turned their genocidal intentions against Kosovo in 1999. Serbian forces murdered between 5,000 and 12,000 Kosovo Albanians and deported 800,000. Only a sustained NATO bombing campaign, of course led by the U.S. over the objections of the European chicken-hearts, stopped the decade-long Serbian campaign of bullying.

Bye, bye, and good riddance, Slobodan.

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Related: Dictator Watch, Balkans

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