The bad war - Letters

I was looking forward to buying David Halberstam's new book until I read Nicholas Thompson's review ("Besting the Brightest," September 2001). Both Halberstam and Thompson seem to think that Kosovo was a triumph, rather than what it was: an embarrassment with ominous overtones for the future. We intervened on the wrong side: the Kosovo Albanians not only were responsible for the vast majority of the prewar cease-fire violations, but they exterminated the Kosovar Jews with more enthusiasm than the Nazis. And it was our double-cross of the Russians--promising them a role in the peacekeeping if they pressured Milosevic to give in and then denying them a place at the table--which ended the war, not high-tech wizardry. That last betrayal cost Boris Yeltsin his office, giving rise to Vladimir Putin, who may be an improvement for the Russians, but who is a far less reliable ally of the West.

But of all the negative implications of the Kosovo bombing campaign, none was more disturbing than to see a completely intact Yugoslavian army march out of Kosovo with virtually no damage. After throwing billions of dollars of fancy weaponry at this army we really ought to be asking how a primitive army like the Yugos managed to fool the whiz kids, rather than writing valentines to Raytheon.

THOMAS F. BERNER
New York, N.Y.

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