In Croatia, they praise the generals ...

I arrived in Croatia -- Dubrovnik, where I'll be teaching for two weeks -- yesterday afternoon, and the kind person who met me at the airport informed me (I quote the accurate words of the Washington Post) that "the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Friday overturned the 2011 convictions of generals Antee Gotovina and Mladen Markac for ethnic cleansing of Serb civilians in Croatia in 1995." Serb forces bombed Dubrovnik during a 1991-1992 siege.

The freeing of the Croatian generals from prison was met with celebrations in Dubrovnik. Singing, cheers, loud noises (I won't say explosions), could be heard long throughout the night. I witnessed rather wild expressions of joy, lubricated by alcohol, by young people in bar in the center of town.

Back in my apartment, I looked at Croatian TV where the news reports, needless to say, were dominated by "the freeing of the generals." Happy Croatian crowds were prominently displayed.

I couldn't help but compare, without drawing any conclusion, this veneration of the glorious freeing of the generals in Croatia with very mixed feelings to the humiliating revelations about our generals in the USA.

Image from, with caption: Croatian Gen. Ante Gotovina, right, is embraced by an unidentified Croatian war veteran upon his arrival to the airport in Zagreb, Croatia on Nov. 16, 2012. The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal overturned the convictions of two Croat generals, including Gotovina, on Friday for murdering and illegally expelling Serb civilians in a 1995 military blitz.