We Won the War (op-ed)
"It is high time for the "all sides equally guilty" refrain, the lie
so dear to the heart of the West and the ICTY, to be finally thrown into
history's trash bin where it belongs."
This letter is also being faxed to Secretary of State Colin Powell, NSA
Condoleezza Rice, Senators Biden, Lugar, Leahy, Boxer, Feinstein, McCain,
Kerry, Feingold and Representatives Cox and Radanovich. Please send
letters to your own Senators and Congressmen as well as Pres.Bush and
Sec. Powell.
President George W. Bush
Oct. 16, 2003
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Bush:
It is appalling to read that the U.S. Administration has offered 5
million for the information and/or capture of Croatia's General
Gotovina, who is indicted by the ICTY for "command responsibility". If
command responsibility is the criteria for indictments of armed forces
officers, then American officers should be equally open to indictments
when their troops, without their command or knowledge commit war crimes.
Such indictments are of course wrong and the fear of them is precisely
the reason why this Administration refuses to sign on to the
International War Crimes Court. Commanders should not be made responsible
for their individual soldiers' or troops' war crimes.
Nevertheless, your Administration demands the extradition of Croatia's
General Gotovina, while at the same time badgering Croatia to wave any
U.S. forces' culpability in commitment of war crimes. It is an outrageous
double standard - made even more grievous by offering money for the
capture of an honorable general, innocent of the crimes he is charged
with, and equating him with the likes of Osana bin Laden, Hussein and the
Serb war criminals and mass murderers general Mladic and Karadzic.
It would behoove the Administration to remember that it was Croatia and
General Gotovina's leadership during the liberation of Serb-held Croatian
territory that also led to the defeat of the Bosnian Serbs in a large
part of Bosnia, even though the West assumed that Bosnia was a lost
cause. That defeat forced Serbia's Milosevic to come to the peace
negotiations in Dayton which finally ended four years of war. It took
Croatia to stop a war that none of the Western Powers were willing to
stop. It is high time for the "all sides equally guilty" refrain, the lie
so dear to the heart of the West and the ICTY, to be finally thrown into
history's trash bin where it belongs.
Sincerely,
Hilda M. Foley
American Croatian Association
13272 Orange Knoll
Santa Ana, CA 92705-2258
