# 5, During the war there were plenty of places you could go for balanced reporting even in the West. Der Spiegel had some fantastic reports from Kosovo, as does some French news stations. The Greek papers were all over it. Robert Fisk in the UK, Scheer writing fo the LA Times, and ever Steven Erlanger for the NY Times (though he later went on to head the Arts section, and he proceeded to get rid of fiction reviews). The decent reports were few and far between however. Even back then there were the Linda Millers of the world, Carlotta Gall and Georgie Geyer. My best source of news during the 90s was the listserv of a rather even-keeled monk in Kosovo who disseminated news accounts from both Albanian and Serbian sources. What a hoot. I realized quickly on that their propaganda methods were very, um, unsubtle, made worse by very poor translations.

#10, It goes beyond a simply base in Kosovo. It has lots to do with transporting resources from the Caspian through Turkey. Gas especially needs to be piped out to the Adriatic. Every time you cross through national territory, you have to pay the tollkeeper.

#4, We are all run by criminals. I would say Bush pretty much proved that he's very willing to kill for his strategic objectives. How many had Milosevic killed prior to the ethnic tensions in the early 90s? Criminal? As criminal as our guys. A murderer? Genocidal lunatic? Yes. In sheer numbers however, he's responsible for a lot less than those killed elsewhere under our agency. Milosevics are made, not born. Well, maybe part of them is born.