Re-Post: Nearing Midnight for March 20th (Part 1)

God Will Now Be Milosevic's Judge

One of history's most tiresome trials came to a screeching halt with the death of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. After four years, hundreds of witnesses, tens of thousands of documents and $200 million down the drain, he can never be pronounced guilty or innocent.
Milosevic was one of the key figures in the Yugoslav wars during the 1990s and Kosovo War in 1999. He was accused at the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity in Kosovo, and the charges of genocide in Bosnia and many other war crimes including ethnic cleansing and mass rapes in Bosnia and Croatia were added a year and a half after that.
The tribunal judges are most responsible for this legal fiasco. They made key decisions that led to an exhausting, expensive five-year process.
Sensing his spotlight in history and the chance to grandstand for his home audience in Serbia, Milosevic did a lot to help draw out the trial. He complicated matters by refusing even to speak to the his court-appointed attorneys. Ultimately, they withdrew from the case.
As I read the news reports of Milosevic's trial, I couldn't find an indication of how long the trial was expected to continue. I hope the trial wasn't only at the halfway point. At the rate things were going, they might as well have put him in cryonic suspension, and unfreeze him when some future generation finally reaches a verdict.
I can only wonder how long the Saddam Hussein trial will drag out. The former Iraqi dictators trail didn't begin until 19 October of last year. If the Milosevic proceedings are any guide, it will be many years before Saddam gets a date with the hangman.
The Nuremberg trials didn’t take this long. Despite the task of trying thousands of defendants for crimes related to World War II, the process for each case only took a few months. Here are two prime examples and one individual example of how easy a trial of despots should go:
The Doctors Trial - The trial considered the fate of 23 German physicians who either participated in the Nazi program to euthanize persons deemed "unworthy of life" (the mentally ill, mentally retarded, or physically disabled) or who conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners without their consent. The Doctors Trial lasted 140 days. Eighty-five witnesses testified and almost 1,500 documents were introduced. Sixteen of the doctors charged were found guilty. Seven were executed.
Einsatzgruppen Trial - Twenty-four defendants, all members of German mobile killing units, the Einsatzgruppen, charged with the murder and ill-treatment of POWs and civilians in occupied countries, and with wanton destruction not justified by military necessity. Trial dates: Sept. 29, 1947 to April 9, 1948
Hans Frank - As a senior Nazi official, Hans Frank was the governor of occupied Poland during World War II. Frank oversaw the segregation of the Jews into ghettos, and the use of Polish civilians in various labor camps. Frank was captured by American troops on May 4, 1945, and was one of the defendants at Nuremberg. His trial ran from 20 November 1945 to 1 October 1946, when he received a death sentence. Frank was executed on 16 October.
I chose Frank from among dozens of other Nazi leaders because he famously expressed regret about war crimes. On the witness stand he uttered: "A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will still not be erased."
One of the key reasons it has become so difficult to convict war criminals has to do with the fallen nature of men's hearts. In this end-time hour, our society has become so evil that we find it difficult to see the wickedness in history's most villainous individuals. Genocide should come under what one judge called the “pornography rule” – you simply know it when you see it.
Someday Jesus will have no problem separating the sheep from the goats. Because the Lord is perfect and all-knowing, it's not going require a 5-year process to figure man’s guilt or innocence.

-- Todd