Pecat in English

Deyan Ranko Brashich Reading and watching the news I am outraged by the treatment of babies and children in detention facilities on our southern border. The image of a three-year-old curly headed girl with a …

Deyan Ranko Brashich This is for those of you who still believe that public protest will carry the day, for the multitudes that have marched against “Brexit”, for the “yellow vests” that have taken to …

Deyan Ranko Brashich It’s been a year since gunshots ended seventeen lives on a high school campus in Parkland, Florida. Back then the news was that the victims were the tipping point – that America’s …

Deyan Ranko Brashich This is “intern month”, a time to review the play between power and youth. Articles and documentaries revisit Monica Lewinsky’s encounters with Bill Clinton, the stained dress, the perjury, the false statements, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The murder of 29 school children and the wounding of another 30 by a Saudi air strike in Yemen is met with a stifled yawn. The death of 576,000 Iraqi children over …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The United States – and the rest of the world – is in the midst of an acute episode of schizophrenia, a self-destructive form of dissociative identity disorder. A heroic course of …

I drove by Carnegie Hall today and remembered the Weavers’ 1963 reunion concert. Back then I was living in shabby poverty, subsidized by the State of New York to the tune of $1,500 a year, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Democracy, a recent invention, has been proven frail and fragile, susceptible to being hijacked by totalitarian forces. Lest we forget, Hitler’s rise to power was the result of the 1932 elections with …

Deyan Ranko Brashich “In Helsinki, [President Trump] agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs. President Trump asked [Ambassador John Bolton] to invite President Putin to Washington …” tweeted Sarah Huckabee …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Larry Flynt, the legal scholar and publisher of Hustler magazine is one of my heroes, a staunch defender of civil rights and of the 1st, 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Paul Manafort’s violation of bail conditions while awaiting trial and his abrupt remand started me thinking about jails and such. The images of children being forcibly separated from their moms and being …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Your blood is red whether you are red, white, brown, yellow or something in between – as the Brits would put it – “not quite white”. All of us, except for the …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States and First Lady Melania Trump will attend the official opening of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum on July 4, 2018 …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Pirot is a down at heels, dusty provincial town at the very ass end of Serbia, right on the southern border bracketed by what is the yet-to-be internationally recognized Republic of Kosovo …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The ancient Greeks had a myth for all occasions and for all human temptations. We are all familiar with the lessons of Jason and the Argonauts and the search for the Golden …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Once again, I rise in partial defense of Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States. He is being excoriated for calling an end to the protection of immigrants from Haiti, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich “Syria” is a country in distress. A “syndrome” is a bunch of symptoms pointing to a particular social condition, a disease or disorder that is debilitating and most often fatal. “Nation building”, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich It’s curtains for Slobodan Praljak, the Croatian General convicted of war crimes. He’s done dead, committing suicide by publicly drinking poison during an open court session last week. It’s also curtains for …

Milo Yelesiyevich “Harvey said the film’s disgusting,” said the caller from Miramax’ Acquisition Department. She was referring to her boss, Harvey Weinstein. “It probably hits too close to home,” I said with comeback and hung …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The White House mouthpiece Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a political huckster, a flimflam artist, said that it would be “highly inappropriate” for me to debate John Kelley, a retired four-star Marine general and …

Deyan Ranko Brashich “The arrogance of power”, a flaw in the body politic, was defined in Senator Bill Fulbright’s book of the same name [The Arrogance of Power, 1966] in which he “attacked the [Vietnam] …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The Kurds held a referendum on independence last week and the Catalans did the same this past Sunday. Time and again people vote for independence, for self-determination playing the old whack-a-mole game, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Some claim that the cornerstone of democracy is a free press; others claim that integrity, not necessarily the truth, is its lifeblood; still others swear fake news is the cause of its …

Deyan Ranko Brashich I ain’t got no quarrel with ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, but should “we” support the war against it in Mosul and Raqqa? I don’t know. As for me, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Turn on the evening news and listen to legal pundits speak of “what to do with Donald Trump”. The comments make “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Jared Kushner, the alleged lynch-pin of the Trump Administration and its eminence grise, is an enigma. He is little known outside the confines of his self-imposed insular world made small by his …

It may surprise you to learn that the United States as of today has only two serving, Senate approved Ambassadors, Nikki Haley, the envoy to the United Nations and David Freedman, the Ambassador to Israel. …

Deyan Ranko Brashich American politicians are like guppies – bottom feeding fish, seemingly aimless and thoughtless, of no socially redeeming value and of little economic worth. They are fungible and little if anything sets them …

Deyan Ranko Brashich When you talk of treason a few names come to mind: Benedict Arnold, Alger Hiss, Aldrich Ames, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The names and their misdeeds are separated by almost two hundred …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Back in the days of Empire two great powers indulged in the “Great Game”, a geopolitical term made popular by Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and The Man Who Would Be King. It was …

Deyan Ranko Brashich While a guest on Long Island’s North Fork I casually picked up Suite Française, a novel by Irène Némirovsky, my hostess’s current read, a paperback with a handsome Humphrey Bogart-Casablanca flavored World …

  Deyan Ranko Brashich         In 1957 Milovan Djilas, the Yugoslav dissident called the victorious post war communist elite the “new ruling class” and predicted that Communism’s eventual demise would be caused by it and its …

Deyan Ranko Brashich A Rx to prevent cyberwars:  Declare cyberattacks war crimes and all state sponsored cyberattack participants personally liable. The world is dependent on computers and the internet. This has changed the way we …

Deyan Ranko Brashich No matter where you go today false illusions of security are in your face. In New York’s Grand Central Station, Paris’ Gare du Nord and Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof you are confronted with the …

Deyan Ranko Brashich For decades “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” has been the guide for American policy. It’s been proven wrong many times over. The flip side of that coin, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich For decades, the Middle East has been an unsolved enigma and a colossal pain in the ass. The reason a peaceful solution for the region’s problems has never been achieved is because …

Deyan Ranko Brashich For the first time in 48 years I violated my self-imposed moratorium on voting, voting in federal, state or local elections. In retrospect, “Shame on me” for violating my oath – I …

Deyan Ranko Brashich I did not write the headline you have just read. The Editors at the New York Times wrote it on October 15, 2015 to highlight a major news story. But the story, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich,      Photo courtesy Getty Images – E! Entertainment Television “I would rather have sex with Bill Cosby than Donald Trump” “With Bill Cosby, you could sleep through it” Tina Fey After …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Debate: “a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward” – the oxford dictionary On Monday 84.4 million Americans watched …

Deyan Ranko Brashich One of the benefits of not voting and refusing to participate in the flawed American presidential election process is that I favor no one. You take no sides. You take no prisoners. …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Since June 16, 2015, the day that Donald Trump formally announced his run for President of the United States, a least a million words have been written about the man. The words …

Deyan Ranko Brashich       Beirut, Lebanon, once the Paris of the Middle East is the apocalyptic poster child for sectarian civil war. Lebanon is the battleground where the proxies for regional and international powers …

Deyan Ranko Brashich           Paying off families of murdered black men is an American custom not replicated in the rest of the world. The payment of “blood money”, million-dollar restitution by states or municipalities for …

Deyan Ranko Brashich When confronted by demands for change elected politicians speak in platitudes invoking the rule of law, the will of the people, majority rule and in the United States, the Bill of Rights. …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Last week’s Orlando shooting had everyone saying again – “guns kill, we must do something”. Today it’s Orlando that prompts the politician’s comments. Yesterday it was Charleston, before that San Bernardino, Boston, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The road from Doboj to Sarajevo winds along the Bosna River through bucolic farmland and then miles of barren landscape destroyed by strip coal mines. I was driving through Bosnia and Herzegovina …

Deyan Ranko Brashich It was ugly, an ugly pile of dirty brownstone pierced by a round beautiful stained glass window surrounded by dozens of stores selling second hand sewing machines from the sidewalk. I first …

Deyan Ranko Brashich I do not like the Saudis very much.  Saudi Arabia is a vile, evil, corrupt oligarchy calling itself a monarchical autocracy, whatever the hell that is. It is a brutal dictatorship no …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The world is in a state of war. Read any newspaper still being published, turn on the television, the radio or power up your iPhone, get on the internet and you are …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Syria’s Kurds on Thursday declared a de-facto federal region in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria, drawing sharp condemnation from both the Damascus government and its opponents who decried the unilateral move as …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Breaking News: Sweden, January 28, 2016 – “80,000 could be expelled after refugee influx. Authorities prepare to deport tens of thousands with failed asylum claims after record 163,000 applications las year”. Al …

Deyan Ranko Brashich In American Graffiti, George Lucas’ 1973 coming of age movie, young men drive jazzed up hot rods down a Southern California city’s streets with no destination in sight, just whiling away time …

Deyan Ranko Brashich What do you do when a friend goes bad? What do you do when a staunch ally puts selfish self-interest above common good? What do you do when your once tolerant secular …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The big boys – that’s the NATO to you and me – just asked little Montenegro to come and join in the Big Leagues. What Montenegro doesn’t get is that the big …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Every action has a reaction although the reaction may be unanticipated. The Syrian civil war is being waged between forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime, the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich I have a working knowledge of war crimes. I spent five years defending two men accused of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war, grave breaches of the …

Deyan Ranko Brashich August 6, the anniversary of the day Little Boy, the atomic bomb, exploded always brings Hiroshima to mind. Last Thursday was no different except that I walked downstairs rather than using the …

The European Union has just kicked the Greek crisis down the road with an €86 billion [$96 billion – ₤62 billion] euro bailout supported by draconian austerity measures. The plan is to stabilize the Greek …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The Guns of August is a book about the blunders, miscalculations and general fuck-ups starting with an assassination in Sarajevo that led the death of 10 million soldiers and 5 million civilians …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Another Memorial Day just passed us by. The weather was perfect. Fighter jets and military transports boomed and flashed by overhead. In New York, Fleet Week was in full swing with men …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Vojislav Šešelj, “Voja” to his friends, has been on trial charged with war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for over 11 years. That sets an international record beating …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Though far from wealthy, I live on New York’s Fifth Avenue. I am a winner in that uniquely New York lottery – buying an apartment in the right place at the wrong …

Deyan Ranko Brashich On April 7, 1941 the Luftwaffe bombed Belgrade, Yugoslavia at the start of World War II. I cannot recall any personal acts of heroism or of fear on my part; after all, …

Deyan Ranko Brashich After the assassination of editors and cartoonists at France’s Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper one million demonstrated Sunday in Paris condemning this savage act with the rallying cry “Je suis Charlie/I am Charlie”. …

SELF DETERMINATION, INDEPENDENCE OR CHAOS AN EXCHANGE OF IDEAS BETWEEN A RETIRED ATTORNEY AND HIS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT GRANDSON DEYAN RANKO BRASHICH : International law is bedeviled by the conflict between the “all countries are …

Nikola Kostich, a friend and fellow attorney with whom I tried cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, passed away last week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I am finally free to confess to …

Deyan Ranko Brashich I first became aware of Paja Jovanović, the legendary Serb artist [1859-1957], when I saw the painting Seoba Srba [The Great Serb Migration] on the wall above a fireplace in an apartment …

Deyan Ranko Brashich            Worldwide some financial institutions are “too big to fail”, the economic version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm pecking order: all financial institutions are created equal but some are more equal than …

DeyanRankoBrashich May 16, 2014 will mark the 2nd anniversary of General Ratko Mladić’s ongoing trial to be followed by the 3rd anniversary of his arrest and transfer to The Hague on June 3, 2014.   …

This column is a purely personal view of events as I had no dog in that fight [the disintegration of ex-Yugoslavia]. The only allegiance I had in the events was to Bosco Radonjic, a long …

Deyan Ranko Brashich “I am going to kill you for having joined Al Qaeda. While you are a citizen of the United States I wish to assure you that your death by drone is justifiable …

John Pilger, The Guardian From China to Ukraine, the US is pursuing its longstanding ambition to dominate the Eurasian landmass I watched Dr Strangelove the other day. I have seen it perhaps a dozen times; …

Deyan Ranko Brashich A Crimean primer for NATO: the Bosnia & Kosovo wars  The world’s media has covered the ongoing confrontation between United States lead NATO and Russia, the “invasion” of Crimea, the referendum on …

“you just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests” Secretary of state john kerry speaking on “meet the press”, march 2, 2014 Only two nation building models are currently …

THE CRIMES OF THE TIMES The New York Times, nicknamed “The Gray Lady”, is America’s newspaper of record publishing “all the news that’s fit to print” since 1896. For those of you familiar with only …

Deyan Ranko Brashich I have nothing to hide. I do not send emails to Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States or abroad.  I do send emails to Belgrade, definitively a suspect destination. My …

Deyan Ranko Brashich  Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge, the President of the United States by default upon the death of Warren G. Harding, declared that the “business of America is business”. Notwithstanding President Eisenhower’s warning to …

Deyan Ranko Brashich America has been sold a bill of goods: the millions and billions of dollars in fines levied on, or penalties agreed to by America’s major financial institutions for causing the financial crisis …

Deyan Ranko Brashich President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are brilliant as the good cop/bad cop guys in this week’s episode of the three year old soap opera As the World Turns and Syria …

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The short lived Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [Serbia and Montenegro] [1992-2000] also known as the “FRY [S&M]” is not to be confused with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the“[SFRY]” whose agonizing …

Milorad Vučelić, editor in chief Everybody is making fun of Serbia, but to make the things worse Serbia is making fun of itself. It’s far from easy spitting on oneself every single day without any …

Vojin Joksimovich, PhD  Modern Tokyo Times We live in a complex world full of mind-boggling developments including cases of ruling administrations pursuing foreign policies clearly not in the national interests. A globalist agenda seems to …

Diana Johnstone Do international criminal tribunals contribute to reconciliation between parties to armed conflicts? On April 10, the question was discussed during a “thematic debate” at the United Nations General Assembly – but not by …

Milorad Vučelić, editor in chief It isn’t hard being a profit of doom nowadays. It is especially easy when you have painfully obvious opponents of Serbia and the realization of scenarios written long time ago, …

John Laughland As the president of the General Assembly, Mr Vuk Jeremic, said in his opening remarks, we meet today on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the creation of the International Tribunal for …

Milorad Vučelić, editor in chief The template for the dramatic performance virtually does not exist. It’s just some Brussels paper rag, worthless and almost impossible to interpret and analyze. Plain and simple it’s nothing. The …

MiloradVučelić, editor in chief Is April 2nd going to be a day of hell’s torture for Serbia or the day when we are to remember that we are not a state nor people formed yesterday …

Milorad Vučelić, editor in chief The real theme of Brussels talks is the independence of Kosovo. If Kosovo was an independent state there would be no talk about it. Therefore the failure of the latest …

MiloradVučelić, editor in chief We came a long way from Brussels’s technical negotiations to the fact that Kosovo is not considered a state matter of Serbia anymore. The talks are exclusively about Serbs in the …

Deyan Ranko Brashich So you still want to join the EU and buy into the Euro? Think again. If you haven’t noticed the EU promised to bail out Cyprus’ banking and financial system over the …

Stephen Karganovic (The comment below has provoked lively responses. One of them is by Canadian barrister Christopher Black. He points out some fundamental flaws in the strategy followed by the Karadžić defence. By acquiescing to …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Seems that some people are finally thinking rationally and addressing the issue of cyber wars square on as called for inPecat’s articles “Stop Internet Wars” [February 3, 2013] and “Stop Internet War …

Milorad Vučelić, editor in chief He just had to; thefather of our Minister of agricultureGoran Knezević just had to remember “the warm rabbit “, betterknown as “running the gauntlet”. Now, it is a well-known fact …

Deyan Ranko Brashich North Korea just irritated the world by flouting its nuclear capabilities. In response the United Nations Security Council on Thursday ramped up an already disastrous economic sanctions regime. Iran is hell bent …

MiloradVučelić, editor in chief This, year 2013, is the 200 year anniversary of the birth of BishopPetarIIPetrovićNjegoš. For 200 years now the Serbs and Njegošare inseparable One and it is the most sacred and greatest …

Deyan Ranko Brashich “In America You Have the Right to Be Stupid” – John Kerry, Secretary of State,February 26, 2013in a Speech in Berlin, Germany. Enshrined in America’s Declaration of Independence is that some truths are …

Slobodan Jankovich At the eve of the hundred year anniversary of the beginning of The First World War, the western public opinion shows an overwhelming increase in, nowadays well established, rewriting of history. These theories …

MiloradVučelić, editor in chief Serbia would be the land of milk and honey, if and when we change the Constitution. Not one day passes by without at least one of our politicians saying this sentence. …

Deyan Ranko Brashich The European Union has proven to be a work in progress now in danger of unraveling and crashing in flames. When rats are contemplating leaving a sinking ship why would any country …

Diana Johnstone  Opposing genocide has become a sort of cottage industry in the United States. Everywhere, “genocide studies” are cropping up in universities.  Five years ago, an unlikely “Genocide Prevention Task Force” was set up …

DEYAN RANKO BRASHICH Good news. In the event Serbia elects another Slobodan Milošević, also disliked by the international community, rest assured Belgrade will not be bombed, cluster bombs will not be dropped on Niš, the …

Deyan Ranko Brashich It’s been 20 years since I first acquired a computer and joined the internet. For the most part it has been a great experience. But lately the cyber world has left me …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Numbers work equally as well in Belgrade, Novi Sad and New York. Money and numbers go hand in hand. As numbers get bigger they become incomprehensible, meaningless. It is easy to grasp …

Deyan Ranko Brashich Some years ago I was a guest at an elegant dinner party in Belgrade attended by a number of the city’s elite and some members of Serbia’s literary establishment. This elegant salon was in …

DEYAN RANKO BRASHICH Went up to Harlem last week for a farewell drink, a double bourbon, neat, at the Lenox Lounge up on Malcolm “X” Boulevard, once called Lenox Avenue, just south of 125th Street. The …

Deyan Ranko Brashich On Christmas Eve, the one on December 24 not the one on January 6, I was having a beer at JG Mellon’s, an old bar on New York’s Third Avenue. Mellon’s is …

by Deyan Ranko Brashich Christmas trees and Holiday turkeys, snow and Yuletide carols, a boy dreaming of a toy rifle and a Norman Rockwell America are the main characters of A Christmas Story, the 1983 movie …

Stephen Karganovic The recent Tolimir trial verdict at ICTY generally follows the standard pattern, but some interesting departures should be noted. General Tolimir was head of the Department of Security and Intelligence at the Main …

In accordance with its Constitution and the basic principles of international law, the Republic of Serbia, in good faith, offers the political platform for talks with representatives of the provisional institutions of self-government in Pristina …

Author: Daniel Serwer, peacefare.net Anyone who thought, as The Economist and others have reported, that Serbia was softening its position on Kosovo and would yield to sweet reason has to be disappointed today. The Belgrade platform for …

The Hague’s red robed clowns are at it again dispensing flawed justice. The clowns who call themselves judges have just rendered two judgments, one in Gotovina & Markac, the other in Haradinaj, Balaj & Brahimaj,that defy legal logic, …

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Prime Minister Hashim Thaci is in a bind. His country’s largest and most lucrative enterprise, the state telecommunications company, is up for sale. The jostling among buyers is intense. Narrowing the bidders …

Milorad Vučelić, editor in chief The Hague Tribunal has delivered its verdict in the retrial of Ramuš Haradinaj.  We should not let it slip our minds that a Serbian court has already quashed the prosecution …

ACADEMIC CONFERENCE “TURKEY IN THE BALKANS” AT THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Under the patronage of Prof. Emil Vlajki, Vice President of the Republic of Srpska, an academic conference entitled “Turkey in the …

When UNPROFOR claimed that Muslim forces in Sarajevo targeted their own citizens, and  the indichment for the systematic terror  of  Sarajevo civilians  has been  reduced by  the Hague prosecutor  to 10 (ten!) sniper attacks and …

Vojin Joksimovich, PhD Modern Tokyo Times On November the 16th the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) outrageously reversed convictions, acquitted and ordered immediate release of the Croatian Colonel General …

Milorad Vučelić             Stratagem Number Three in the Art of War is to slay with someone else wielding the knife. The enemy is to be destroyed by someone else’s hand so the real perpetrator remains …

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya : An award-winning author and geopolitical analyst, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of …

Stephen Karganović  Viewed from a political perspective – and there is no other applicable standard to assess the operations of the Hague Tribunal – the appellate level vindication of the role of Croatia and its …

Pecat in English