Flowers for Slobo

Slobodan Milosevich, by all accounts, was corrupt, incompetent, and, thanks the series of wars he started to maintain his grip on power, a vicious war criminal who brought ruin to Yugoslavia and ruin and shame to Serbia.

That said, his trial, and the manner of his death are a great blot on the International War Crimes Tribunal. The length of the trial was preposterous. It had been going on for more than four years when he died of what are probably not completely natural causes. The Tribunal and the prosecutors need to be told in no uncertain terms that if their case cannot be presented in four weeks, they don't have a case.

The comic opera trial of Saddam Hussain is a similar cock-up. If they were determined to hang this guy, they should have gotten around to it before Bush had created more mass graves than Saddam.

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