Justice Denied: Milosevic escaped verdict; Saddam must not

Dallas Morning News | Editorials:

“In death, Slobodan Milosevic eluded worldly justice. The victims of Europe's worst atrocities since the Holocaust will never have the satisfaction of knowing that the international community got the chance to look the ‘Butcher of the Balkans’ in the eye, condemn his evil deeds and pronounce him guilty. Instead, in a cruel twist of fate, the former strongman continues to have a chokehold on judgment, even in death.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

This attitude strikes me as unhealthy. Slobodan Milosevic was jailed, he was standing trial for war crimes; he died in prison. How exactly did he "elude" justice? How exactly does a dead man maintain a "chokehold" on anything. He didn't and he doesn't.

Justice demanded that Milosevic be held accountable for his crimes. His capture and trial did that. A guilty verdict and sentence of imprisonment would have been the inevitable outcome of that process. Death does not change that. Death does not change the message that the world sent by removing Milosevic from power, hunting him down, and imprisoning him to stand trial. The world condemned his actions. The world proclaimed that such behavior will not be tolerated. That is what matters, not whether our blood lust in watching him suffer is satisfied.

In the end, justice was done. In death, Milosevic finally relinquishes the hold he had on us that led some of us to seek vengeance and call it justice.