But the point--which, incredibly, you still seem to be denying--is that NATO tried to sell the war by filling the media with inflated stories of a huge slaughter that never took place. There is an important difference between the killing of 2,500 people and the killing of 100,000 in the space of ten weeks. One is an atrocity and the other is genocide of epoch proportions.
Then, you dodge:
And as I said then and say now, the speed and coordination with which the
ethnic expulsions were done shows that Milosevic had to have put in place
plans to do it, showing absolute lack of good faith in any negotiations.
My last post patiently explained that Milosevic *did* plan the mass expulsion, but that most knowledgeable observers of the Balkans regard these as contingency plans--held in reserve in case NATO attacked. I argued further that NATO has similar contingency plans--for, say, invading Serbia--but that Serbia could not legitimately launch a "pre-emptive strike" against NATO on the basis of these plans.
Then you say:
I don't buy that anyone goes from seriously negotiating autonomy for a country
to full-scale ethnic clensing. Those are not the kind of modal choices held
in serious negotiations
This is moralistic nonsense. Madeleine Albright helped to supervise and execute Operation Storm, the expulsion of 250,000 Serbs from Croatia in 1995. Yet you think Madeleine Albright negotiated in perfectly good faith at Rambouilet. So which is it, Nathan?
You haven't followed Milosevic's career very closely either. Slobo is notorious for oscillating from reasonable negotiator to insane butcher. He alternated from a campaign for Greater Serbia to the "sell-out" (as they see it) of the Bosnian Serb republic. In that respect he's much like Dr. Albright herself.
As for the dreadful (but necessary) numbers game, I'll just say this. My figure (2,500) comes from a forensic investigator for the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Your figure (10,000) comes from nowhere, except maybe a British foreign ministry official who just made it up. And there's a big difference between 2,500 and 10,000.
A further point: I agree that Kosovo is like Israel/Palestine in some respects. But why do you think that's a point in favor of bombing Serbia? Are you in favor of bombing Tel Aviv too?