Another voice in 1999, that of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke against the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovars. Here she speaks from a refugee camp in Macedonia.
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Hillary Rodham Clinton called the refugees' stories "extremely disturbing," saying they brought up images that hadn't been seen in Europe since World War II.

"You feel almost like you're intruding, but they want to tell you what it felt like when they lost their children," Mrs. Clinton said.

NATO accuses the Yugoslav army and Serb special police of conducting a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against Kosovo's Albanian population.

Mrs. Clinton said the stories echoed images of the Nazi era, as depicted by films like "Schindler's List" or "Sophie's Choice."

"Think about what that means -- to be driving people from their homes, separating them from their families, loading them on trains," she said.
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I appreciate her stand. And I'm sure the 1.5 million Kosovar refugees do.
Yes, there were many more tragedies and suffering, a high loss of civilian casualties and all the terrible things that come with war. Milosevic thought nothing of deliberately placing civilians in buildings that NATO told him would be bombed.
Serbs suffered retaliation and revenge killings in the wake of liberation.
Yet considering the alternative, it is hard not to call it a success.
Perhaps that is why the bond between Hillary Clinton and Wes Clark runs deep. They were unable to affect the outcome of Rwanda, but it wasn't for a lack of trying.
Less than ten years ago, the idea of Kosovo becoming a gmember of the EU, let alone a sovereign nation was relegated to the realm of the far fetched. It is now a nation.

The oldest ethos is the strong will do what they will and the weak will accept what it must. The Melian debate, as chronicled by Thucydides. (The Melians, despite being an ally of the Lacedaemonians - Sparta - was neutral in the Peloponnesian War.) The following is an excerpt from their debate.
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Athenians
Well, then, we Athenians will use no fine words; we will not go out of our way to prove at length that we have a right to rule, because we overthrew the Persians; or that we attack you now because we are suffering any injury at your hands. We should not convince you if we did; nor must you expect to convince us by arguing that, although a colony of the Lacedaemonians, you have taken no part in their expeditions, or that you have never done us any wrong. But you and we should say what we really think, and aim only at what is possible, for we both alike know that in the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where there is equal power to enforce it, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.

Melians
Well, then, since you set aside justice and invite us to speak of expediency, in our judgment it is certainly expedient that you should respect a principle which you know is for the common good; that to every man in peril a reasonable claim should be accounted a claim of right, and that any plea which he is disposed to urge, even if failing of the point a little, should help his cause. Your interest in this principle is quite as great as ours, inasmuch as you, if you fall, will incur the heaviest vengeance, and will be the most terrible example to mankind.
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In the end, Melos was detroyed by Athens, the men killed and the women and children sold into slavery.
Kosovo did not suffer the same fate, only because of US and NATO intervention..

Update

In regards to the NATO 1999 bombing of the RTS building and the killing of 16 people, the station director and Milosevic were warned in advance. Milosevic and Milanovic deliberately placed these innocents there so that their deaths could be used for propaganda purposes.

Excerpt from Salon

His second documentary, "Ethnic Cleansing," looks at the war-crimes trial of a Yugoslav accused of atrocities in neighboring Croatia. His latest, "The Anatomy of Pain," released last spring, delves into the night 16 RTS employees were killed when NATO bombed the RTS building April 22, 1999. Soon after the bombing it emerged that the director of RTS, Dragan Milanovic, had ordered his staff to work their shift or lose their jobs, even though he knew it was going to be bombed, and had informed a personal friend of his to stay away that night. The film is as critical of the RTS and Serbian leadership as of NATO.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/world/ europe/18kosovo.html?th&emc=th

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/14/ kosovo.refugees/

http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_ri ghts/kosovoii/pdf/kosovii.pdf

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/MELIAN.HT M

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/ 2000/10/31/serbia/index4.html

Originally posted at No Quarter

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/02/18/ europes-46th-nation-kosovo/