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hate Slobodan Milosevic, and I was all in favor of marching into
Belgrade and removing him from power. But I do not revel in his
arrest and his impending trial in The Hague at a "war crimes tribunal"
created by the United Nations, because I know that lots of folks
at the U.N., on bad days even a majority of the Security Council,
would love to see some present and former American officials tried
for the same sort of crimes in the same docket.
I would hate that, even if it were Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright,
hauled up for aiding and abetting genocide in North Korea. And I
would hate it even more if it were, as some of the America-haters
are urging, George Bush the Elder and his evil henchmen Powell and
Cheney, for genocide in Iraq. If you think such events are utterly
fanciful you're not spending enough time online with the new New
Left. If that crowd has its way, one A. Greenspan will stand trial
for mass murder.
That's why all those folks who are gushing and cooing over the wonderful
expansion of the "rule of law" had best remind themselves that dreams-come-true
often have unintended consequences, although in this case they are
certainly not unimagined. The United States refused to sign the
Genocide Convention for more than a generation precisely because
of such fears, and those resisting included some fairly cautious
souls from both parties, from Hubert Humphrey to Jacob Javits and
Clifford Case, for example. When we finally signed, we stipulated
reservations strong enough to convince several of our close allies
that we hadn't really agreed to anything. We insisted that no American
can stand trial without the formal approval of the U.S. government,
and that in no case can any American be tried for something that
is not criminal according to the Constitution. The wise Americans
who insisted on such reservations had the same nightmare visions
I do. And they insisted that the "rule of law" is best exemplified
by the Constitution, and we're not going to expose American citizens
to somebody else's view of what is criminal.
The kidnapping of Milosevic and his delivery to The Hague tribunal
seems to me utterly unnecessary, because he was going to be tried
by his own countrymen (the Genocide Convention, for example, requires
enforcement by the nations involved, and permits the creation of
special tribunals only when the law is flouted). The seizure of
Milosevic was probably carried out to favor one side in the intense
internal political struggle between Milosevic's successors in Serbia
and the virtual country called "Yugoslavia" (Serbia plus Montenegro),
and, more ominously, to show the world that the U.N. — or,
in this case, the countries offering financial aid to Serbia —
can enforce its will.
Never mind that Milosevic was removed from power by the Serbs (you
may recall that, as in Iraq, we shrank from the dirty deed, preferring
to leave the scene and hope that good things would happen), and
that a duly elected Serbian Government has insisted on its authority
over the former tyrant. This is quite different from the situation
in Africa, where Rwanda simply lacks the resources to try their
own mass murderers; Serbia is able and willing to try Milosevic.
We are denying Serbia the same rights we have claimed for ourselves,
and it's quite remarkable that so few chatterers and, so far as
I can tell, not a single member of the American government, has
spoken against the clear violation of Serbian sovereignty. Richard
Holbrooke, in a remarkable essay in the Washington Post,
regrets only that this happy turn of events was produced by Congressional
meddling in foreign policy. Not even Henry Kissinger, who is likely
one day to be indicted by one of these self-righteous tribunals
(if Lou Lapham and Christopher Hitchens have their way), has denounced
it. Is no one concerned that the U.N. — the same bunch that
declared Israel guilty of racism, and that removed us from their
human rights institutions — may kidnap our citizens and drag
them before some self-appointed judge?
The current trend toward trying fallen dictators is thus far limited
to the former rulers of small countries, and has a distinct political
tinge to it. No one is clamoring for the trial of former Communist
tyrants from the Soviet Union or Central/Eastern Europe. The fashionable
intelligentsia cheers when Pinochet gets gobbled up, but no one
demands that Gorbachev or other Soviet Communists stand trial, as
simple intellectual consistency demands. And don't hold your breath
waiting for the International Court of Justice to indict Fidel Castro
or the vicious regime in Beijing (although you may recall that Fidel
was so upset by the indictment of Pinochet that he cut short a trip
to Spain and hightailed it back to Havana before some local judge
brought charges).
All this is simply one more example of the global victory of the
legal class. The lawyers and judges are asserting their supremacy
over all possible competitors for power, from the businessmen to
the politicians and the generals and colonels. They have claimed
the authority to decide who gets indicted, and who enforces "the
rule of law," here and everywhere. The politicians, who mostly come
from the legal class, aren't inclined to contest the issue. The
military, at least north of the Equator, accepts civilian rule.
Who is left to defend us against the impending assault of politicized
lawyers with a grudge against America?
Maybe we should enlist the trial lawyers. Somebody should tell them
that if this trend continues, all the fees from the "patients' bill
of rights" boondoggle will go to some attorneys in Brussels or the
Netherlands. Then we might get to see a real fight.
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