As with the terrorists in Iraq, if you are an enemy combatant, and not in an official military uniform when captured, a battle-field execution is legally justified.
Call it the "Mata Hari" clause of military justice, and how spies can be executed.
Posted on 06/02/2005 8:54:24 PM PDT by Hoplite
Agencies in Belgrade
Friday June 3, 2005
The Guardian
They are the images that have finally, 10 years later, shocked a nation. A man, several men, are unloaded from a truck, marched to a wooded hillside and shot, one by one, in the back. Two prisoners are ordered to carry the bodies to a barn. They too are then executed. The murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 is well documented. But a video that emerged this week during the trial of the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, has provoked a bout of soul-searching in Serbia, parts of which are still in denial over the horrors of the Bosnian war.
The footage was the first such graphic material from the massacre in Srebrenica to be shown in the country, where more than half of the population refuses to believe it even took place, according to a poll last month. "Serbia is deeply shocked," President Boris Tadic said. "Those images are proof of a monstrous crime committed against persons of a different religion. And the guilty had walked as free men until now."
Eight alleged former members of a Serb paramilitary group, the Scorpions, filmed actually carrying out the murders, have been arrested on the strength of the footage, officials said yesterday.
The faces of the perpetrators can be seen and their insults to the Muslims heard. The film was shot by a member of the Scorpions.
"The killers had walked freely among us, on our streets, behaving as if they were ordinary, honorable citizens," Mr Tadic said. "All those who committed war crimes must be held accountable; only in this way will we be able to have a future. We must not close our eyes to the cruelty that took place."
He added that the crimes at Srebrenica "were carried out in the name of our nation".
"But crimes are always individual and the perpetrators of these monstrous crimes must be punished."
Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, with UN peacekeepers powerless to stop their advance. Some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were led away to their deaths, survivors telling of how they were lined up and shot in several batches, then buried in mass graves.
The prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, called the executions a "disgraceful".
UN prosecutors say the killings in the video footage took place on Mount Treskavica near the wartime Bosnian Serb capital, Pale, which is south-west of Srebrenica. The Scorpions were allegedly under orders from Serbian police in Belgrade and the link could directly tie Mr Milosevic with the crimes committed in Bosnia.
As with the terrorists in Iraq, if you are an enemy combatant, and not in an official military uniform when captured, a battle-field execution is legally justified.
Call it the "Mata Hari" clause of military justice, and how spies can be executed.
For sierra(anonymoussierra) full translation
"God will judge those who dare to raise their hands on those who are innocent. Human atrocities will not go unpunished fore last word belongs to God. Those who don't believe in God, though they believe in something, for there is no such a thing as atheist for they believe in something as well we all have to face consequences of our own actions. Worst would be for us to denied existence of evil then sleep with it"
thank you
I agree.
Is that supposed to be an attempt to justify a war crime, Jim?
Are you an Al Qaeda apologist?
No, but what does Al Qaeda have to do with Srebrenica?
The AQ folks were in central Bosnia, not in the eastern enclaves, and furthermore started arriving after the Serbs started on their Bosnian killing spree.
You might want to read Evan Kohlmann's "Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe : The Afghan-Bosnian Network" before you attempt to expound upon the subject.
And finally, yes, Milosevic's wars. He started them with the express intent of maintaining and furthering his own power, and to hell with the actual consequences to his constituents or Serbia's neighbors. I really don't care what folks are calling Enduring Freedom or Iraqi Freedom - they're nothing like Milosevic's wars, so I don't consider your question being either relevant or altogether informed.
You don't know much about Milosevic's wars, do you?
this is why i said earlier in another post that they "cracked a nut with a sledgehammer". if it was as simple as finding terrorists and executing them, well - i still would prefer a trial, but i wouldnt be getting upset or "ranting" as someone accused me earlier. thats no big loss.
but the serbs, faced with seperatists and terrorists, they made an inhuman choice. they responded to a wrong with a far greater wrong, deliberately perpetrated against whole male populations.
the fact that there was terrorists among that population doesnt justify what the serbs did. its like if we went into iraq and afghanistan and started lining men up against the wall to shoot them - which we did not.
The Bosnians I know, all of whom were involved in that civil war, are "muslims" in the same way most Europeans are "christians" i.e. in name only, and quite frankly they are utterly indistinguishable from any other group of Europeans. This kind of warfare between European ethnic groups is as old as Europe, and almost non-stop for all of history.
Your tag line...the best scene in the movie.
Hey, the liberals are all upset that they are being exposed to the horrors of the American female.
As far as I am concerned, they should be executed and the prison demolished.
Enemy combatants who are captured without an official government military uniform, are not eligible for POW status. Battle-field execution is legally allowed.
Why is this important for civilized nations?
Military and civilians must be segregated, to protect the innocent. If enemy combatants hide behind women and children, then they are guilty of endangering their lives.
Civilized men have defined rules of war over the centuries. You must identify yourself as member of the military, to protect the innocent civilians.
Failure to protect innocent civilians, from knowingly hiding your enemy combatant status, is justification for immediate battle-field execution!
"they made an inhuman choice"
But a choice nonetheless. History is made through power, and who controls the politics that wield that power. If a society is believed (by whatever means) to face certain destruction and that salvation was by slaughtering a small innocent child. Where is the rationale in that? It surpasses civil norms, yet not survival instincts.
Why, in the execution video, did all of the men have the same type of blue shirts?
Enemy combatants, or the tragic result of a fantastic K-mart special on blue shirts?
I'm an not saying this justifies executions of civilians, but to me it does add a certain perspective: I remember very clearly an interview of a Bosnian fighter stating, and with a smirk on his face, that they deliberately were goading the Serbs into mass reprisials because of the political capital they would gain internationally and also inspire more Bosnians to take up the fight when the Serbs over-reacted with atrocities.
My thoughts at the time were that either they were almost incredibly cynical and cold-hearted, or I was extremely naive, or perhaps both. I mean, I was shocked.
I am sorry those on the ground where latter killed. they where not dead yet.
And if one were unaware that the Serb ethnic cleansing campaign started out with mass executions of civilians, without the benefit of being goaded into them by Muslim actions, one might nod one's head and say "Wow, you might have a point there."
Oh, wait - was your Bosnian fighter making his statement during World War II? Because that's the justification the Serbs used (and some still use around here) for their descent into murder and mayhem during the 1990's.
Something does not smell right. I would classify these men as captured enemy combatants, until factual evidence is provided to show otherwise.
Put it this way: They were not innocent civilians!
Since I grew up in Atlanta Georgia, we were taught from a young age to never forgive what the "Damn Yankees" did to us.
Who did what to who, is not something that I am interested in. In any civil war, every single person (man, woman or child) must make a choice. There are no innocents!
I evaluate people and news organizations upon how well they can support their reports with factual information.
I was trained for combat, and I understand how vital it is for a member of the military to identify himself to the enemy.
I am only concerned about how the people in the American military conducted themselves during this war against Serbia.
The UCMJ is very strict for American soldiers, and although it does not apply to Serbian soldiers, I will judge their conduct in relations to it.
Apparently you need some remedial training.
FM 27-10 is available online, and is the pertinent document, rather than the UCMJ. I suggest you reacquaint yourself with it's contents, and concentrate on the term "protected person", rather than "innocents".
And you may want to note that the Rules of Land Warfare are based upon some international conventions and agreements that Yugoslavia was party to, making what happened to the folks in the video a crime not only if it were perpetrated by American servicemen, but by those who fall under Belgrade's jurisdiction, like the Scorpions.
New video of killing -ping.
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