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).