justify the release of a real, full-bloodedrnwar criminal.rnL’affaire Djukic is more than just a reminderrnof the travesty of justice going onrnin The Hague. A dangerous precedentrnin positive international law has beenrncreated, too, and a thorough revision ofrnthe U.N. Charter has been effected. ThernHague may yet prove to be a step towardrnthe globalist dream of a permanent InternationalrnCriminal Tribunal. The goalrnis not to delegitimize war crimes per se,rnbut to enhance the power of New WorldrnOrder enthusiasts to decide what is a warrncrime on the basis of current politicalrncalculations. To the Albrightesque mindrnthere is no danger of the United Statesrnhaving to accept the jurisdiction of anrnInternational Criminal Tribunal createdrnby the resolution of the U.N. SecurityrnCouncil, without congressional consent,rnwithout presidential signature, withrnprimacy over the Constitution and overrnAmerican courts. Such indignities arernreserved for a Serbia, or a Rwanda. Therntrue goal is not to give up control, but tornexercise it. The objective is not to buildrna new global superstate, but to developrnmore effective tools to keep existingrnstates in submission.rnChief prosecutor Coldstone is leavingrnThe Hague to take an attractive new postrnin his native South Africa. It is doubtfulrnwhether his hand-picked successor,rnMadam Justice Arbour from Ontario,rnwill be able to restore some credibilityrnto the prosecutor’s office. The task mayrnprove beyond the powers of even thernfairest-minded of jurists: the system ofrnjustice created in The Hague is inherentlyrnunfair.rnFor many it is also lucrative. Like anyrnother ideologically inspired and publiclyrnfunded project in social engineering,rnthe Tribunal has become an importantrnprovider of sinecure to a legion ofrnlawyers, paper-pushers, and “experts.” Itrnhas gobbled up over 40 million dollars sornfar, and this year’s budget alone amountsrnto another 40 million. This is enough tornguarantee its transmutation into a selfperpetuatingrnbureaucratic Leviathanrnwhich will never willingly leave thernscene.rnAnd who pays for all this? Increasingly,rnthe American taxpayer. While somernearly bankrolling of the Tribunal camernfrom the Islamic world, a lot of its currentrnbudget comes from the U.S. Treasuryrn—including 2.5 million dollars’rnworth of computer equipment donatedrnto the prosecutor’s office. The majorityrnof Americans whose innate sense of fairnessrnhas not been corrupted by insidethe-rnBeltway considerations might haverngood reason to feel that their tax dollarsrnare being misused. Most of them dornnot know the truth about The HaguernTribunal. If they did, they just mightrncare.rn—Srdja TrifkovicrnCHRISTOPHER HITCHENS andrnVanity Fair get the Connie Chung Awardrnfor May. “Thanks for your help,” readrnthe letter inserted in my complimentaryrncopy of the May issue of Vanity Fair. Itrnseemed like a polite gesture, a pat on thernhead for sharing my research (publishedrnand unpublished) on plagiarism. Thernirony—if you can call it that—is thatrnnowhere in Christopher Hitchens’ Mayrncolumn on plagiarism does he acknowledgernmy work.rnAbout a month before the May issuernappeared, I received a call from VanityrnFair’s fact-checker, Walter Owen. Hernsaid Christopher Hitchens would bernquoting from my 1994 book. The MartinrnLuther King, ]r., Plagiarism Story, for hisrnMay column, and he wondered whetherrnI would, one, confirm certain parallelrnpassages that I had culled from King’srnpapers and which Mr. Hitchens plannedrnto quote in his column; two, confirm therntitle of King’s paper analyzed on page 91rnof my book, which Mr. Hitchens wantedrnto cite; and three, provide the full namernof the source that King had plagiarizedrnin this essay.rnI remember the call well, for it wasrnnearly five o’clock in the afternoon and Irnwas running late for an engagement. ButrnI canceled my dinner plans, took Mr.rnOwen’s number, dug out my files and arncopy of my book, and called him backrnwith the information as requested.rnWhen I received my comp for “servicesrnrendered,” I phoned Mr. Owen to findrnout what had happened to Mr. Hitchens’rnreference to me and my research. Hernsaid he didn’t know but that he wouldrnfind out.rnNow, there are a variety of creativernways in which Vanity Fair could havernhandled this situation. It could have reveledrnin the irony of one of its columnistsrnstealing material for an article aboutrntheft. It could have apologized forthwith,rnexplaining that a mad Turk in thernoffice had gone on a rampage, excising atrnrandom Greek names from the Mayrncopy. Or it could have promised to correctrnthe omission in the next issue. Inrnother words. Vanity Fair had ample timernand opportunity to “explain” the “oversight,”rnbut instead it chose to lie aboutrnthe matter.rnAccording to Walter Owen, VanityrnFair’s executive editor Elise O’Shaughnessyrnstated that Mr. Hitchens had nornobligation to cite me and my research,rnfor my information was “general knowledge,”rnand, after all, “Mr. Hitchens’rncolumn is not an academic work withrnfootnotes.” “General knowledge” is thernstuff of encyclopedias and almanacs, notrnof published research in monographs. Ifrnthe evidence for King’s plagiarisms wererngeneral knowledge, Mr. Hitchens wouldrnnot have consulted my book in the firstrnplace. Mr. Hitchens says that AriannarnHuffington did not acquire by transcendentalrnmeans the information she stolernfor her biography of Picasso, and thernsame holds true for the examples ofrnKing’s plagiarisms that Mr. Hitchensrncites in his column.rnMoreover, if Ms. O’Shaughnessy hadrnactually read Mr. Hitchens’ column, shernwould have known that literary theftrnmost often occurs in expositions withoutrnfootnotes, as in speeches, novels, newspapers,rnand magazines. Joe Biden, AlexrnHaley, Molly Ivins, and David Leavitt allrnplagiarized in the context of nonacademicrnwork.rnBy refusing to cite his sources, Mr.rnHitchens gave his readers the impressionrnthat not only did he have King’s studentrnpapers at his elbow, as well as copies ofrnthe works which served as King’s sources,rnbut that he had also done what I had torndo throughout my four years of writingrnon the King plagiarism story: spendrnhours poring over original documents.rnMr. Hitchens ends his column with arnchallenge to his readers: to hnd any pilferedrnpassages in his article on pilfering.rnWell, as Mr. Hitchens reportedly saidrnwhen he caught Taki lifting a phrasernfrom an article by Norman Podhoretz,rn”Gotcha!”rn—Theodore PappasrnOBITER DICTA: The foiiowmgrnstores in San Francisco now sell Chronicles:rnBorders, 400 Post Street; GoodrnNews, 3920 E. 24th Street; Juicy News,rn2453 Fillmore; Rainbow Grocery Co-rnOp, 1899 Mission Street; Tower Records,rn2525 Jones Street.rnJULY 1996/7rnrnrn