In one case a disused mine allegedly used to dispose of bodies was examined, and no bodies nor any trace of decomposition fluids was found.

The Kosovo ‘genocide’ was as thoroughly debunked as the Iraqi WMD, but, as Larison noted, by then media interest had moved on.

If anyone wants sourcing, Google is your friend.

Clinton portrayed intervention as something he did grudgingly to halt genocide, but there was no genocide to halt. He had given the Serbs an ultimatum to let NATO have the run of their country, and like any self-respecting state they refused. Then the bombing began shortly afterwards. If you have never heard arguments that bombing Serbia was illegal until the last year, I submit that you haven’t followed the discussion about it very closely.

As for the remark about being a disaster for the people it was supposed to help, I was referring to massive refugee crisis that the war created as hundreds of thousands of Albanians were driven out of Kosovo by a combination of the air campaign and Serbian military units. The mass expulsions that the campaign was designed to prevent were the very things that the campaign hastened and facilitated. Soon thereafter, the Albanians returned to Kosovo, but I would call the effort a pretty dramatic failure if the goal was to prevent the mass expulsion of Albanians.

What bombing Serbia achieved was to detach part of its own territory by force and establish a de facto partition that Western powers then formalized with their recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in early 2008. That in turn contributed to the escalating conflict between Russia and Georgia, as Russia aimed to exact some revenge on one of our satellites for what we had done to one of theirs. All in all, Western policy on Kosovo has been appalling, and it has created a horrible precedent for the future. Of course, it was precisely that precedent that Russia exploited in the 2008 war with Georgia.

Serbia was penalized for attempting to suppress a separatist rebellion inside its own borders. It was a purely internal affair, and no state or alliance of states had any right, legal or otherwise, to launch military strikes against Serbia. It was never sanctioned by the Security Council in any way, and the war violated both the U.N. Charter and had no authorization under the North Atlantic Treaty. In addition, the President had no constitutional authority to wage war against Serbia, but why get hung up on technicalities like that?

I know a lot about this subject, and it’s only in the last year or so that I’ve heard any of this “Kosovo was illegal” stuff, mostly from you.

You mentioned “false atrocity stories that the Clinton administration used in its war propaganda.” Do you have any examples?

I know for a fact that “false atrocity stories” were used by all sides in the Yugoslav conflict, but I also know that there are many very true atrocity stories that came out of Vukovar, Srebrenica, Osijek, and Sarajevo.

I was always opposed to the Balkan interventions, but I am at a loss as to what this is about. Do you mean the ethnic cleansing of the non-Albanians?

For the Kosovo Albanians, we might speculate on whether they would have fared better absent the intervention. I don’t know of any facts that would remotely justify describing their present situation as ‘disastrous’.