New Knick: Darko Milicic and Serbians Played On, Even as the Bombs Fell

Excerpted and paraphrased from Clinton and Blair 'guilty of genocide,' published by the BBC, 04/16/1999

There are fundamental issues at stake with regard to the selection of legitimate targets in a situation such as this.

The case is being taken to the European Court of Human Rights by relatives of people who died in the attack on the main Serbian television station in Belgrade in April 1999.

The families could be awarded damages if the European court finds the governments had acted illegally and violated human rights.

The attack on the TV station, which killed 16 civilians, was one of the most controversial of the NATO campaign.  Amnesty International later described it as a war crime.

Excerpted and paraphrased from Serb Families to Sue NATO Allies, published by the BBC, 07/17/2000

Top military officers and Pentagon officials, who in interviews with NEWSWEEK over the last three weeks were still glossing over or denying its significance, have buried the damage report.

Why the evasions and dissembling, with the disturbing echoes of the inflated "body counts" of the Vietnam War?  All during the Balkan war, Gen. Wesley Clark, the top NATO commander, was under pressure from Washington to produce positive bombing results from politicians who were desperate not to commit ground troops to combat.

The Air Force protested that tanks are hard to hit from 15,000 feet, but Clark insisted.  Now that the war is long over, neither the generals nor their civilian masters are eager to delve into what really happened.  Asked how many Serb tanks and other vehicles were destroyed in Kosovo, General Clark will only answer, "Enough."

Excerpted and paraphrased from The Kosovo Coverup, written by John Barry and Evan Thomas for Newsweek, 05/15/2000

When Humanitarianism Becomes War Propaganda

The NATO bombings began in March of a year that, for many, marked the dawn of a new era as we headed into the new millennium.  It was also less than a year after the US accused al-Qaeda of the August attacks of 1998 on US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.

The NATO campaign against Serbia aimed to pressure then Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to capitulate, because NATO had accused Milosevic of ethnically cleansing the breakaway region of Kosovo of Kosovar-Albanians.

The Serbians maintained and asserted that they were fighting a terrorist organization, the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has had ties to al-Qaeda, just as al-Qaeda has had strong ties with other various groups and organizations in the Balkans.

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