One of today's headlines was the trial in the Hague of Radovan Karadzic. We had the pictures of weeping women and forensic scientists at sites with buried bodies, etc. Phrases like 'ethnic cleansing' were used. A quote from one of the prosecutors at the trial in the Hague is as follows:

"When you speak to a woman who tells you that 21 members of her family have been assassinated, you can easily measure the importance of this trial."

There are people with similar experiences that are from Chile, East Timor, Argentina, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Brazil, Columbia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti, South Africa, Angola, Sudan, Uganda, areas of Yugoslavia that were bombed by NATO, Rwanda, just to name a few. Ask yourself why the people responsible for these crimes are NOT on trial.

This is just another example of the truism that war crimes are committed by 'others'. We are involved in 'conflicts', 'transitions', 'right to self defense' or 'defending democracy'.

Orwell must be having a huge laugh.

On the US war against Nicaragua,

"...a sensible policy [should] meet the test of cost-benefit analysis" of "the amount of blood and misery poured in, and the likelihood that democracy will emerge at the other end."

The choice facing the world is "stark and dreadful and inescapable: shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?"

"If we secure the supplies of oil now available in the world we can do what we like."