I had wondered for months how in the face of the world's almost unanimous condemnation and disgust, the Serbs could keep up a war conducted by rape, murder and starvation of whole cities. They marinate in self-pity. In their own minds they have solved their formidable moral problem by declaring themselves the injured party.
Mobs have an evil dynamic.
An ethnic tribe, at its worst, is a supermob. When the subjective goes tribal, the self indulgence of one man or woman comes frighteningly alive, collective, suddenly legitimized, glorious even. What would be individual shame now blossoms into shamelessness. Thus does self pity become selfless and, by this magic, righteous. And thus a brute killer portrays himself as a victim, who is therefore infinitely justified.