You couldn’t make it up

The Guardian has choice snippets from the phone taps of Slobodan Milosevic. At one level it’s amusing, but it’s also an insight into how a country became in effect a mafia-run state. Fortunately, some good things are now happening in Serbia, while Milosevic’s trial opens today in The Hague.

Bill Keller has pointed out that we’re not hearing much from the Bush administration about the success in bringing Milosevic to trial. That’s because the administration remains implacably opposed to the notion of an international criminal court. Yugoslavia also shows how positive western assistance in nation building can be.