Bagging The Butcher

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But the love was not enough. Sunday morning the government tried again--and this time it was not rebuffed. The crowds that had filled the streets outside his house had evaporated overnight. A police caravan arrived at the house, and other than a few harmless gunshots reportedly fired off by Milosevic's overwrought daughter, there was little drama. The ex-strongman was bundled into a car and zipped to Belgrade's central jail, a 10-minute ride from his house that took just three on the empty morning streets.

Any attempt to extradite Milosevic will be a rough political sell in Serbia. A recent poll found that while most Serbs were happy to see Milosevic tried for domestic crimes, extradition was largely unacceptable. Many Serbs don't want Milosevic to face war-crimes charges because that would force them to begin to recognize that it was not Milosevic who raped and murdered his way through the last decade of the 2nd millennium. It was not Milosevic who liquidated whole towns of men and teenage boys. That work was done by unknown numbers of Serbian soldiers and paramilitaries who still walk free. No matter how much time Milosevic serves on whatever charges, he cannot even begin to make up for their bloody and inhuman cruelty.