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Fears that American officials and soldiers will be prosecuted for participating in U.N.-backed peacekeeping efforts lie behind the Bush administration's threat to scuttle the present U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.

Cool. However, what happened in Krajina wasn't a "UN-backed peacekeeping effort". It was an attack on a largely defenceless population - a war crime. America shouldn't be exempted when it comes to answering for mass-slaughter like 'Operation Storm'. If it weren't for the U.S., those crimes would've never happened. Under the tutelage of the MPRI, the Croats attacked Krajina and expelled half a million Serbs who had lived there for 5 centuries. They received U.S. Air Force support and some of the U.S. politicians present in Croatia at the time even rode around atop the Croatian tanks.

True, it was a war crime, and the Clinton administration was actually involved in it. If the ICTY indicts Clinton and company, that will have multiple good effects: Clinton will be discredited; the U.S. government will see to it that nothing happens to Clinton and his accomplices; and these international tribunals will thereby be discredited.

Rich irony, since the Security Council resolution establishing the ICTY was drafted by the U.S., and obviously could not have passed the Security Council without U.S. (i.e., Clinton administration) support.

Unfortunately, I fear the ICTY will chicken out and not go after Clinton and his people, just as they chickened out over Kosovo back in '99.

Cool. However, what happened in Krajina wasn't a "UN-backed peacekeeping effort". It was an attack on a largely defenceless population - a war crime.

That is correct. BTW the general leading this operation was Agim Ceku - future commander of KLA. . One quote from there:

The KPC was slated by the United Nations to become --in the words of UNMIK Special Representative Bernard Kouchner "a civilian, disciplined, uniformed and multi-ethnic emergency response... with a mandate to "providing humanitarian assistance... and contributing to rebuilding infrastructure and communities...." Shift in military labels. KLA Commander Agim Ceku was appointed Chief of Staff of Kosovo’s newly created Armed Forces. In the words of Bernard Kouchner during the inauguration ceremony: I look to him [Agim Ceku] to lead the new members of the Corps in the footsteps of Cincinnatus, the model citizen-soldier of ancient Rome -- who left his plow standing in the field to answer the call to arms & and at the end of the war refused all honors in order to return to his civic duties.

It seems our government can dish out "international justice" but we can't take it. I'm all for keeping the US out of any international courts, but I question our motives for doing so. If we are going to play Corrupt Policeman of the World, we can't expect to justly exempt ourselves from accountability.

BTW, this is so typically Clinton: be the ring-leader of dire crimes, then back away and let someone else hang for it. I support Bush's resistance to the IC, but he needs to stop supporting Muslim thugs in the Balkans, and apologize to the Serb people for what we did to them under Clinton.

Oh wow, man. I never knew half this stuff...like you know, I've been watching the news for a long time and you know, I heard a lot about those really bad guys like Karadzic and Mladic, but what's this about this Ante Gotovina guy? Operation Storm? Croats killing Serb civilians? I never heard any of this...

I didn't even know the Croats had guns. At least that's what it seemed like to me watching the news. I thought Serbs were doing all the shooting and killing, and the Croats were the victims. Nothing I ever saw or read for the last ten years or so even gave me the impression the Croats (or Muslims) even had an army. I suppose a few might have had some hunting rifles and a kitchen knife... I mean, if they had an army why were they always crying for us to bail them out?

At least that's what the news said.