With all hell breaking loose in Iraq, a typhoon named Durian drowning hundreds in the Philippines, and the FSB irradiating or shooting any Russian who has opened their mouth in the past six years, how about some good news in the world of international affairs to cap off the week?

I know I could use it.

Here's the good word from the UN News Centre:

The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today sentenced a former Bosnian Serb general to life in prison after dismissing an appeal against his convictions for his role in the long siege of the city of Sarajevo during the early 1990s.

The appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), sitting in The Hague, upheld prosecutors’ separate appeal against the original sentence of 20 years for Stanislav Galic, a commander in the Bosnian Serb army, over the campaign of daily shelling and sniping against Sarajevo’s residents.

It is the first time that the ICTY’s appeal chamber has imposed the maximum penalty.

A majority of judges dismissed all 19 grounds of appeal by Mr. Galic against his convictions, stating that there was ample evidence to demonstrate that the main purpose of the attacks during the siege was to spread terror among Sarajevo’s civilian population.

While foreign policy conservatives in the United States rail against the United Nations for being ineffective and corrupt, it is a useful reminder to see that some of the institutions like the ICTY, over which the individual Member States have the least control, are highly capable of carrying out the mandates assigned to them. With this life sentence, hopefully our world can build momentum to bring justice to those who have committed crimes against the world's civilians who find themselves caught in warfare, be it in Iraq, Sudan, the United States, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Rwanda, Chile, or other parts of our planet.

I've heard of the War On Christmas, but I never imagined that being on Santa's naughty list would be an excuse for war by other means. From AP:

The Bush administration wants North Korea's attention, so like a scolding parent it's trying to make it tougher for that country's eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.

The U.S. government's first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.

Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim's swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.

The new ban would extend even to music and sports equipment. The 5-foot-3 Kim is an enthusiastic basketball fan; then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented him with a ball signed by Michael Jordan during a rare diplomatic trip in 2000.

The article goes on to call it a "creative solution." Yeah, I guess after you've dithered for six years, crippled one of the best nonproliferation agreements ever forged, and escalated a crisis to a nuclear weapons test, you have to get "creative." What's next? No more Whitney Houston for Osama?

Best when changed frequently.

This seems to be the message suggested by a summary tacked to the end of an Associated Press article about when exactly Rumsfeld will sign out and Gates will punch in:

There has been speculation that the Pentagon transition would be put off until the end of December in order to give Rumsfeld the distinction of being the longest-serving secretary of defense since the post was created in 1947.

Rumsfeld is the only person to have held the job twice. The first time, he served for 14 months, from Nov. 20, 1975 to Jan. 20, 1977. His current tenure began Jan. 20, 2001. If he were to stay until Dec. 28, his combined tenures would surpass the longevity record held by Robert S. McNamara, who served from Jan. 21, 1961 to Feb. 29, 1968.

Ruff said, however, that the timing of Gates' takeover has nothing to do with the longevity record.

"I can assure you that is not a factor on the secretary's mind," Ruff said.

 

McNamara, of course, has grown old enough to regret much of what he did during his tenure in that post. Will Rummy be around long enough to realize how much he screwed up and how much death and destruction his incompetence rained down upon the American and the Iraqi peoples? Does he have it in him to find his own shortcomings and share what those who attain the heights of power as he has should learn from them?

I sure do doubt that one, especially if Bush goes ahead and pins another Medal of Freedom on another dubious chest.

It's interesting how Rumsfeld and McNamara are almost like mirror images. Charlie Savage's Boston Globe article on Sunday about Cheney's lust for untrammeled executive power was a good reminder of how Rumsfeld started his career in presidential politics - running the Office of Economic Opportunity, whose antipoverty mission he apparently held in rather low regard. After gutting OEO, he moved on up to Secretary of Defense in the Ford administration. And, of course, our brilliant Decider gave him a second chance in 2001 where he showed that you really can't teach very old dogs how to carry out basic motor functions, let alone new tricks.

McNamara, of course, went from the international war on peace to the global war on poverty (which, let's face it, he probably won't be remembered for very positively). He left powerful marks on both institutions, and at the end of his life, seems regretful of much of what he was responsible for. While Rumsfeld's legacy is beamed over by people who want to name the entire country after Ronald Reagan, it's useful to keep McNamara's sense of his own legacy in mind.

Running our nation's armed forces is hard work. It seems like letting the same people do it for eight years at a time twice now hasn't been all that good for our country. Rowan Scarborough's article in the Washington Times today shows how Robert Gates has a long-standing reputation for being on the wrong side of many fights in our nation's national security administrivia, and so it would seem that the Decider has selected another turkey again. There isn't much we're going to be able to do to make our Department of Defense better functioning in the last two years of the Bush Administration/Cheney War Cabinet.

But there's a message that whoever comes after him should certainly take away, whether it's Hillary, Obama, Rudy, or McCain: effective leaders know when it's time to say goodbye.