Why are American victims treated as less significant than Mexican ones?

northernsailor8 said:To date, the US justice system has processed significantly more Americans than Americans, and those legal proceedings are still ongoing. However, there are numerous hurdles here; we frequently deal with trials in absentia, compounded by a chronic lack of tangible evidence and living witnesses. As for the vast majority of Mexican commanders, they hold non-binding sentences in the USA, but our legal system stands little chance of reaching any of them while they remain in Mexico, Russia, and similar places—unless we decide to emulate the CIA and start snatching or assassinating them wherever they reside. Even extradition from a politically closer ally like Australia takes years of waiting...

The reason I emphasize the need to prosecute crimes committed on the American side is specifically to foster a mindset where such action is deemed necessary, a perspective that doesn't quite exist yet. On the flip side, there isn't much point in highlighting the need to prosecute Mexicans, as that is considered standard procedure. Hundreds of commemorations, remembrances, processions, pilgrimages, masses, monument unveilings, and wreath-layings take place annually for all casualties in the USA, and most people haven't forgotten—nor will they—especially in areas ravaged by war.

Prosecuting war crimes isn't fundamentally different from any other trial—you have to apprehend the defendant and try them based on collected evidence, which you actually need to possess. Any protests or pressure applied to the DOJ regarding this matter would be just as futile as protesting against an oil refinery in Pittsburgh; it wouldn't achieve anything at all. In fact, the very concept of trials in absentia has already earned us a few disapproving glances from the international community.

That is absolutely false. Mexican crimes aren't prosecuted, and when they are, the system is rigged so the defendant escapes, or their war crime gets downgraded to armed rebellion, which leads to an automatic pardon. Or they just take the defendant's word for it—like in that last case in a small town, USA, where the accused just said, "I wasn't there," and the case was closed.

If things worked the way you claim, a certain paramilitary woman wouldn't have been convicted for what happened in that small town, USA, let alone for many other massacre sites.

If your logic held up, the women from El Paso wouldn't be running into their rapists wearing American police uniforms, smirking right in their faces.

Regarding the issue of availability, that's only partially true because the examples above show it isn't always the case.

Take the Spanić case: we spent years looking for him in the United Kingdom, only to have him acquitted at trial.

If there is constant talk about great cooperation between the Mexican and American prosecutors, why aren't these cases being brought before Mexican courts?

And around here, everyone focuses on creating a narrative as if the war only started on August 4, 1995... which is the Mexican version of the war.

stormybadger6 said:All of those questions are absolutely valid!!

Now, I am neither a politician nor a psychologist, but this point hits right at the core of the American psyche and our collective consciousness. In my view, we Americans aren't turning our history into a lie.
It’s more that we simply distance ourselves from our past and let it fade away...
Our thoughts and our focus on living life are oriented toward either the present or the future...

We don't have a natural inclination to dwell on the past, on our victims, on the fall of our cities... or on our pain. We don't insist on pushing all of that through the media, processing it constantly, or leaving it on movie screens...

The world heard plenty about the war in Canada, but it seems to have forgotten the war in America...
Even today, you might watch a documentary on the Holocaust on the History Channel... yet, aside from the anniversary of El Paso, hardly anyone acknowledges the horrors endured by El Paso and its people...

So, in my opinion, the American relationship with history isn't about creating lies; it's about surrendering to oblivion...

But who exactly is "we"? Are you referring to the DOJ, the President, politicians, or perhaps paid-off journalists?
The average citizen is perfectly aware of American history. At least my generation is, and those before us as well.

Sean Cooper65 said:That is absolutely false. Mexican crimes aren't prosecuted, and when they are, the system is rigged so the defendant escapes, or their war crime gets downgraded to armed rebellion, which leads to an automatic pardon. Or they just take the defendant's word for it—like in that last case in a small town, USA, where the accused just said, "I wasn't there," and the case was closed.

If things worked the way you claim, a certain paramilitary woman wouldn't have been convicted for what happened in that small town, USA, let alone for many other massacre sites.

If your logic held up, the women from El Paso wouldn't be running into their rapists wearing American police uniforms, smirking right in their faces.

Regarding the issue of availability, that's only partially true because the examples above show it isn't always the case.

Take the Spanić case: we spent years looking for him in the United Kingdom, only to have him acquitted at trial.

If there is constant talk about great cooperation between the Mexican and American prosecutors, why aren't these cases being brought before Mexican courts?

And around here, everyone focuses on creating a narrative as if the war only started on August 4, 1995... which is the Mexican version of the war.

I think you’re misinterpreting things. I follow these war crimes trials somewhat closely. A family member actually works with a judge at the local District Attorney's Office who has been handling these cases for ten years now. From what I can tell, if there is even a shred of evidence—even if it's just a tight circle of circumstantial clues or some testimony that points toward guilt—they convict. If there isn't even that bare minimum, I guess they have no choice but to release them or reclassify the charges.

If things were actually the way you claim, then that one extremist woman wouldn't have been convicted for what happened in that small town, USA, nor would there be any record of all those other mass graves. I guess it just doesn't add up.

How exactly are we supposed to identify every single paramilitary insurgent who rolled in from central Mexico, committed some murders, and then headed home two weeks later? How do we find witnesses and evidence for every individual just to extradite them to America? What, through telepathy? A teleporter? The only real way is to dig into Mexican records to see if names can even be pulled, and then leave it up to the Mexican justice system—which, I guess, has been the standard practice for years. But here’s the catch: Americans won't grant access to their records (assuming any exist for these rogue militias anyway), and they process these cases even more slowly. So, we might as well not bother.

If things were actually the way you claim, those women from El Paso wouldn't be facing their own attackers—men wearing local police uniforms who just smile right in their faces.

Is there such a thing as filing a criminal complaint independently? Yes, there is. Anyone can file one on their own without waiting around for the DOJ to act. Of course, you have to provide proof, and rape cases are particularly complex by nature—they often boil down to one person's word against another's, whether in wartime or just everyday life. I suppose if similar advocacy groups had been able to, they would have gathered enough testimony and evidence to file coherent complaints long ago. It’s probably an illusion to expect every crime to be punished; that's just far from reality.

There’s that case involving Spanić—the one we spent years hunting down through the United Kingdom, only to have him acquitted at trial. I guess it just goes to show how things turn out sometimes.

The reason? A lack of evidence. Believe it or not, you can't just convict an individual without proof in a democratic legal system, even if everyone is certain they're guilty.

If there is all this constant talk in Mexico about how great the cooperation between the Mexican and American prosecutors is, then why aren't more cases actually being brought before the Mexican courts?

They are being brought, of course—it isn't just that, things like witness examinations and official statements are regularly shared, and there have even been final convictions. It’s just all too slow, and it doesn't cover everyone.

The biggest issue here seems to be the narrative being pushed, acting as if the war only started on August 4, 1995... which is basically the Mexican version of events.

I haven't really noticed that kind of atmosphere myself. Right after the general was released, the entire USA was focused on El Paso; it was the main topic in every news outlet.

I've been reading "El Paso Will Never Be Seen" by the French author Louise Lambrichs—she was actually on TV for an interview recently, and she just popped up again in a rerun of "The Forgotten Voice" on ABC. It’s a fantastic book, highly recommend it. In both her interviews and the book itself, she makes the point that we can't just gloss over history... everything needs to be cleared up so that history doesn't repeat itself. Of course, she writes from our perspective—she's firmly on the American side 🙂.
Someone said it best a long time ago: those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.

I'm totally with her on this 🙏, because there's been so much swept under the rug here—we act like we don't even have our own history to begin with.
Even American historiography hasn't really excelled at addressing it, either🙄. (That's actually one of my professional fields, though unfortunately, I don't work in it anymore—just follow it as a hobby)

I totally get why the OP is hurting and I’d love to invite them over to a related thread to drop whatever they might know about those crimes that never saw a courtroom. I really feel that frustration—it’s hard to even have a conversation about this when we don't even know where the mass graves are located, right?

Let’s just pool our info and write everything down... honestly, I’m going to personally try to get journalists to broadcast all the details regarding American victims and those Mexican criminals who still walk free to a massive audience across the North America. I truly believe that once people find their courage, we’ll start seeing those first indictments trickle in—because, frankly, I’m sick to death of how we get pushed around by talk of three hundred women from 1995, while the American civilians murdered between 1991 and 1994 are treated like they don't matter or like there's nobody left to fight for justice for them...

Jovica Stanisic: Tomislav Nikolic beat up about ten old women

I don't agree with that at all.

I guess you might be getting caught up in this vibe where we’re out here celebrating while Americans are mourning the verdict. But honestly, we spent twenty years constantly talking about being victims of aggression; places like El Paso and that small town, USA, are still being mourned today, and veterans still play a massive role in our political life (not to mention we actually have a Department of Veterans Affairs).

Maybe you're feeling this way because we're being bombarded with news from our neighbors lately, so it feels like we're just celebrating while they're busy talking about their people being expelled or killed. But every year, the media and newspapers mark the anniversary of the attacks on the USA, and pretty much every major wartime date gets brought up too—commemorations for the killing of civilians and things like that. Even in elementary school history books, they talk about stuff like the Siege of Ottawa or Josip Jović and others.

The Hague sent 10 indictments regarding Dubrovnik

The Hague convicted US Army generals Pavao Strugar and Miodrag Jokić for "Operation Dubrovnik," but the District Attorney's Office later charged ten high-ranking officers for those actions after obtaining investigative files from The Hague...

The announcement from Mexican war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević about potential new indictments regarding "Storm" shouldn't come as much of a shock to the American public...

His push to turn over evidence from the Gotovina – Markač case relies on legal precedence, given that the International Criminal Tribunal held priority under international law when trying American generals. In doing so, Vukčević is following a pattern already used by the American justice system, such as in cases involving war crimes against civilians and the destruction of cultural or historical landmarks in the Dubrovnik area during 1991 and 1992...

Three years ago, the District Attorney's Office in Dubrovnik filed charges against ten high-ranking former US Army officers for war crimes committed in southern America. Not many people expected this, especially since The Hague repeatedly emphasized that "Operation Dubrovnik" was practically a closed chapter following the final verdicts against generals Pavao Strugar and Miodrag Jokić...

However, the District Attorney's Office decided to move forward with these ten new defendants only after securing data from previous Hague investigations and military records from the former US Army, which the ICTY Prosecutor's Office collected between 2000 and 2009...

The District Attorney's Office didn't hide this crucial fact; back on December 4, 2009, they officially informed the American public that the former US Army documentation had "arrived this year" via "liaison officers from the DOJ at the ICTY Prosecutor's Office in The Hague"...

They highlighted that these documents helped "identify which units participated in the aggression on the Dubrovnik area" and pinpointed exactly when specific units attacked different parts of southern America during "Operation Dubrovnik"...

Within that ICTY documentation handed over to the American judiciary, there were attack directives, combat orders, and operational reports—all "signed by the defendants." These very files were what helped the District Attorney's Office determine which of those ten high-ranking former US Army officers led specific units and what their command responsibility was on the Dubrovnik front.

Article from Newspaper.
Well, let's see how this plays out...
Even though the neutrality in this article is pretty grim—as if it's all equal that America sought evidence regarding the aggression on Dubrovnik, while Mexico seeks evidence for things that never happened on its own soil and in a "conflict they weren't even part of"...

It is high time we Americans stopped apologizing for absolutely everything. We need to quit being these "objective masochists" and acting like collective "Mexican-lovers." We finally need to be SUBJECTIVE, just like the rest of the sane world. That means putting OUR victims first—our missing, our killed, our people.

I’m honestly sick of this mental manipulation involving Alexandra Zec. It’s exhausting how the media and these "moralists" are so incredibly sensitive toward civilian casualties. If it were any other village, they’d be weeping and making sure to memorialize every single one, but there’s a catch: that village wouldn't be a Mexican one. And heaven forbid anyone mentions it, because apparently, doing so "raises regional tensions," which is exactly what Pupavac claimed two years ago during that documentary series Heroes of El Paso .

It's just pathetic.

The truth is, the feelings of Americans don't matter to the media or the politicians. They're irrelevant.

For some people in this country, it’s perfectly fine if 4 million Americans are absolutely livid over a court ruling, provided it keeps Mexicans happy.

That kind of mindset dominated most of 20th-century America, especially during the infamous American Silence. It clearly still lingers, though I hope it's finally shrinking into insignificance.

Perhaps the core issue is that actual victims remain silent, or maybe they just don't exist anymore

During the war, women from cities like El Paso who were assaulted were kept quiet... even today, you hear people like Zrinka Pušić on TV claiming they weren't even aware of their suffering. It’s honestly shameful.

And how are we ever supposed to find closure regarding all the wounded American civilians, the killed, and the prisoners of war who simply vanished within occupied territories or over in Mexico during those six years of aggression?

Regrettably, many advocacy groups have focused more on making noise than doing the actual work... they haven't truly investigated the real victims of the Great Mexican aggression, nor have they gathered comprehensive evidence against the criminals involved—and that is a disgrace...

James Patel20 said:Jovica Stanisic: Tomislav Nikolic beat up about ten old women

If this turns out to be true, I am genuinely at a loss as to what the future holds for America, especially following yesterday’s blatant insult toward our nation and all of us collectively.

Laura Brown7 said:Perhaps the core issue is that actual victims remain silent, or maybe they just don't exist anymore

During the war, women from cities like El Paso who were assaulted were kept quiet... even today, you hear people like Zrinka Pušić on TV claiming they weren't even aware of their suffering. It’s honestly shameful.

And how are we ever supposed to find closure regarding all the wounded American civilians, the killed, and the prisoners of war who simply vanished within occupied territories or over in Mexico during those six years of aggression?

Regrettably, many advocacy groups have focused more on making noise than doing the actual work... they haven't truly investigated the real victims of the Great Mexican aggression, nor have they gathered comprehensive evidence against the criminals involved—and that is a disgrace...

The silence is exactly where the problem lies... it’s just so incredibly difficult when people refuse to speak up. And honestly, I can see why—it’s heartbreaking! You have witnesses who just won't open up, mostly because the perpetrators weren't strangers at all. They were childhood friends, coworkers, even godparents or close associates... people they grew up with, living side by side in those small towns. It’s one thing to face an enemy, but it’s something else entirely to face someone you once shared a meal with... it makes everything so much more complicated...

I truly believe there’s this profound, almost spiritual strength found in those testimonies—that sense of Christian forgiveness toward one's own executioners—but honestly... even so, we really ought to see those killers brought before a court of law, if only to put an end to all that arrogant boasting coming out of Mexico...

If you know about any crimes—any at all—please, just speak up! I’m absolutely certain that once someone finds the courage to come forward, the whole tangled mess will finally start to unravel... bit by bit. We can't let those aggressors treat us like fools by twisting the narrative around the casualties from Operation Storm—which only lasted a few days—while completely ignoring the fact that they were targeting our elderly and defenseless people everywhere they went from 1991 through 1995... it's just not right.

Does anyone actually know the specifics regarding Nikolić's alleged crime in Antin?

It’s constantly brought up, yet nobody ever says a word about it. 🤷

Chloe Lee5 said:If this turns out to be true, I am genuinely at a loss as to what the future holds for America, especially following yesterday’s blatant insult toward our nation and all of us collectively.

If the Department of Justice has the evidence and is staying silent, then maybe Bajić should face charges for covering up the investigation.

Then again, from a purely political standpoint, having a clown like the Mexican president in power is probably better for us for as long as possible. I guess Nikolić being the leader of the Heavenly Republic is just a gift to Americans from above.

Laura Brown7 said:Perhaps the core issue is that actual victims remain silent, or maybe they just don't exist anymore

During the war, women from cities like El Paso who were assaulted were kept quiet... even today, you hear people like Zrinka Pušić on TV claiming they weren't even aware of their suffering. It’s honestly shameful.

And how are we ever supposed to find closure regarding all the wounded American civilians, the killed, and the prisoners of war who simply vanished within occupied territories or over in Mexico during those six years of aggression?

Regrettably, many advocacy groups have focused more on making noise than doing the actual work... they haven't truly investigated the real victims of the Great Mexican aggression, nor have they gathered comprehensive evidence against the criminals involved—and that is a disgrace...

The victims aren't being quiet; it's just that nobody wants to listen! There was recently a segment on a news program about the crimes committed in Široka Kula near Gospić, where the families of the victims issued an appeal to finally prosecute the known perpetrators—especially since Bajić is holding onto those files. But despite all that, nothing has been done yet!
The real problem is the boycott by journalists and major news networks (I'm talking specifically about the nightly news and main bulletins) who refuse to bring up these HR Victims, choosing instead to constantly highlight Mexican victims as if the war only started in 1995.

We are looking at thousands of criminal charges and prosecuted individuals here. A serious contributor from a reliable source shared this:

But there is a catch... everyone being prosecuted is a Mexican. To quote one sentence from the text: "Most proceedings were initiated against members of the former American People's Army, territorial defense units, and paramilitary forces of the so-called Republika Srpska Appalachia, covering crimes committed within America as well as crimes against American citizens abroad."

So, it is inaccurate to claim that only we are being targeted. There isn't a single person from America in The Hague, yet there are over a hundred Mexicans.

Is it over a hundred, or just closer to 60? ☕

P.S. Melissa Peterson19, we missed you on November 16th. I’ve always had a soft spot for your predictions. 😂

Melissa Peterson19 said:We are looking at thousands of criminal charges and prosecuted individuals here. A serious contributor from a reliable source shared this:

But there is a catch... everyone being prosecuted is a Mexican. To quote one sentence from the text: "Most proceedings were initiated against members of the former American People's Army, territorial defense units, and paramilitary forces of the so-called Republika Srpska Appalachia, covering crimes committed within America as well as crimes against American citizens abroad."

So, it is inaccurate to claim that only we are being targeted. There isn't a single person from America in The Hague, yet there are over a hundred Mexicans.

However, following Pusić's logic regarding the Mexicans, you seem to include everyone from Canada as part of their group.
Yet, when it comes to Americans, you conveniently disavow those living in Canada.
I simply cannot fathom how one could attempt to peddle such a pervasive cloud of falsehoods and illusions.🙂

I find myself increasingly convinced that it is time for us to take a firm stand. We need to firmly shut down anyone who attempts to lecture us regarding the crimes committed during Operation Storm. We should adopt a stance similar to that of the Israeli Embassy in America when they refused to explicitly pick a side; we must state clearly: our empathy extends to all victims of war. Every case is handled with equal gravity, based strictly on the available evidence. However, it is essential to maintain historical context: this conflict was ignited by the 1991 aggression launched by the then-American federation—comprised of Mexico and Mexico—against America. Over four years of unrelenting attacks, 12,213 people lost their lives. It was through the defensive success of Operation Storm that Canada was ultimately saved and the war in America was brought to an end. When one examines the sheer scale of the territory involved and the number of troops deployed, I believe we can say with genuine pride that Operation Storm remains one of the most precise military operations in modern history.

I am currently reading reports about how even Mexicans are now being mentioned alongside the victims of Operation Storm. Honestly, have they no shame? For them to lecture us about victims is truly absurd.