Monday, November 20, 2006

Mladic is an indicted war criminal?! What?!

In case, one day, God forbid, any of my readers are charged with war crimes, here are a few helpful hints of possible defenses that are not going to help you so much:

1. The Why Me Defense: "But there are worst war criminals who haven't been indicted/arrested yet! Why am I on trial?"

2. The Justification Defense: "Yes, we killed unarmed civilians and POWs, but their side also killed civilians, so that justfies us killing civilians..."

3. The "History Lesson Defense: "Well, back in 1300..."

4. The Paranoia Defense: "There's been an international, new world order conspiracy against us!" (Also helpful if you can bring to the stand numerous "academics" and "intellectuals" to varify your claims of a US-Papal-Martian conspiracy against you.

5. And, a new one that takes the cake for creativity: "Mladic was indicted for war crimes? When did this happen? I didn't know that. I only rented apartments for "womanizing" purposes!

2 comments:

Bg anon said...

There is also when you are asked to enter a plea.

Most of them answer (literally) 'I dont feel guilty' - rather than simply 'not guilty'.

I think translators should insist that a proper plea is entered although some would argue that 'i dont feel guilty' in Serbian, Croatia et al is the same as saying 'not guilty'.

Shaina said...

This is probably reading way too much into it; but perhaps saying
"I don't FEEL guilty" as oppose to simply saying "I am not guilty" is a psychological response. Just because you don't feel guilty; doesn't mean that you aren't actually guilty of the offenses alleged.