Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Don't be misled by all the reports from Bosnia saying that the country has gone nowhere since war ended. It has held together despite a jerry-built political structure. It hasn't collapsed back into war. That's quite a big deal
A harrowing return. "To a casual visitor, Visegrad looks like any other sleepy town in the southern Balkans. But the past here is unforgiven, unforgotten, unresolved. The town is as it was at the end of the war"
Bosnia is a society shattered by war, its broken parts redivided and bargained over by Bosniak, Croat and Serb alike. Segregation and teaching of ethnic identity begins early, as this superb essay describes
Hollywood could not have found a more convincing war villain, wrote Richard Holbrooke. "He was one of those lethal combinations that history thrusts up occasionally – a charismatic murderer." But that's not how everyone sees it
In capturing Mladic, Serbia has cleared last big barrier to EU accession. Or has it? EU still doesn't really want Serbia. US commentator argues that there could be high long-term costs in excluding Serbia indefinitely
"Can the citizens of Serbia (or Bosnia or Croatia), who voted time and again for nationalist leaders who led them into destructive wars, truly believe that they had no part in the transformation of Mladic into a war criminal?"
"He asked us to kill him if someone tried to arrest him. He always had a loaded pistol on him. He also had a hand grenade at some point, but asked us to dispose of it as it was highly unsafe to carry a piece of live ordnance around"
Is it wise to try Mladic for genocide as well as war crimes? Sparkling mini-essay suggests not. "Ethnic cleansing, though reprehensible, is not the same as genocide. And loose definitions will encourage more military interventions"
"We have the man who ordered the largest mass murder in Europe since the Second World War and now he will face trial." It may not be a comfortable experience for European countries. But better this than a corpse lying in a compound
International Court of Justice was asked to rule on the wrong question, perhaps intentionally. Kosovo remains in the all-too-difficult box, at centre of jurisprudential, political, moral earthquake zone
Reflection on place of Armenian genocide issue in American and Turkish politics. Congress and Erdogan on collision course. One hopeful sign: decrease in nationalism among Turkish historians
After Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, liberal interventionists rediscover value of legal norms, international stability, institutions in human welfare. Not just a matter of ousting bad leaders
