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Excellent Sirocco. I read Kosovo news sources extensively during the period, and your retelling provides a perfect balance in my mind.

I would only add this to the narrative: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/2811.htm

The UK, Germany and the whole world knew that the events were fabricated in order to allow Western intervention. The UK parliament admitted as much, while allowing that such propaganda and lies were necessary to oust Milosevic. Therein precisely is the dilemma. Should Western democracies overthrow warlords and scum like Milosevic with deceitful propaganda of this sort? Even when a man like Milosevic is smart enought o pick his battles (Milosevic always deferred to Holbrooke when the USA go tough on him because he knew he didn't have a strong hand). I objected to NATO's execution of the war because they pinned Milosevic to a corner when clearly peace was in the offing. Instead, as usual, they wreaked mayhem and triggered an event which ended in the death of thousands. Sound familiar?

I may be cynical, but I find the military men who conducted this war just a shade less trustworthy than those conducting the current campaign in Iraq. I'm not at all convinced that Wesley Clark, for one, could have avoided an Iraq imbroglio. Democrats like having military men on "our" side since it cinches up our macho bonafides in the face of a Republican attempt to "feminize" the Democrats. The upshot us that we trust our military guys blindly, even if they are crypto-Republicans (Clark supported Bush in 2000).

by Upstate NY on Thu Jun 29th, 2006 at 03:18:32 PM EST
Thanks. I was bracing myself for the response to this, but the only objections so far have been from an apparently somewhat anti-Serb commenter at dKos, and were answerable.

More things could have been mentioned, such as William Cohen's infamous claims on May 16 of 100,000 murdered Albanians in mass graves, which evaporated like Iraqi WMD. (And Cohen wasn't even keen on intervention. The State Dept. at one point spoke of 500,000).

There are many parallels between the two wars, from the fact that both enemy statesmen agreed to the bulk of the respective ultimata, via the inadequate planning for the aftermath, to the brash dismissal of a need for explicit UNSC mandate. Especially the latter suggests that the Kosovo War became an important political stepping-stone to the Iraq War, an idea not weakened by this period piece from our friends at PNAC: 'Kosovo and the Republican Future' (pdf).

The world's northernmost desert wind.

by Sirocco (sirocco2005ATgmail.com) on Thu Jun 29th, 2006 at 04:12:34 PM EST
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The upshot us that we trust our military guys blindly, even if they are crypto-Republicans (Clark supported Bush in 2000).

Minor note here: from what I've read, Clark voted for Gore in 2000. He also has been working very hard for Democratic candidates for the last several years - let's put the "crypto-Republican" attack to rest.

by lauramp on Thu Jun 29th, 2006 at 08:39:19 PM EST
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Am I the first to call him a Republicrat? No. Point blank he was asked if he voted for him and he refused to answer. Who did he vote for prior to that? Nixon, Ford, Reagan twice, G.W. Bush. The only Demcorat he's on record as voting for since the 1960s is his personal friend Bill Clinton.

I've been following this guy for years. It's no secret that his bosses didn't think he had much integrity.

Here's what FAIR had to say about him:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1839

Some other choice quotes I got from http://www.irregulartimes.com/wesleywho.html

"And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice... people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there." - Clark in remarks delivered at the Pulaski County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 11, 2001.

Uh, I'm guessing he voted for Bush.

I don't think i was far off at all when I said Clark would very likely have duplicated this administration's Iraq plans.

by Upstate NY on Fri Jun 30th, 2006 at 01:24:37 AM EST
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