Well, it was war for me and my family. When foreign bombers fly every night over your head for 78 days, destroy your bridges, TV towers, television stations, buildings, hotels, passenger trains, power infrastructure, you call it a war.

And for Russian bombing of military targets ~50km outside separatist regions, US doesn’t have right to call it ‘disproportionate’ when they destroyed all bridges over Danube in town of Novi Sad (where local government was headed by anti-Milosevic parties, BTW), 300km north from Kosovo.

Bombing Serbia was against int’l law, but I wouldn’t call it a war.

I find all three of these lamentable, I should say.

Didn’t involve the Lebanese Army.

Or Ethiopias recent invasion of Somalia?

Ethiopian support for one of the factions (the TFG) in the Somali civil war.

Or Ethiopias recent invasion of Somalia?

Serbia is still offering highest possible autonomy (short of independence).

Problem is that Kosovo Albanians never accepted that they are part of Serbia. I remember clearly that, as far as I can remember (60’s), Albanians never willingly accepted Serbia as their state.

I think that Slobodan was stupid when he got sucked up in believing that he can solve Kosovo question. In 1990, Kosovo Albanians withdraw completely from public life of Serbia. Some were (stupidly) laid off from jobs, but majority of them simply refused to take orders from Serbs and walked out on their jobs. I know that policemen were given option by their Albanian brethren: Either they leave Serbian police or their family will suffer. And Albanians are not joke about that — if they say they are going to kill your daughter, you can count that they will.

You forgot 1999: War between US & allies and Serbia. If that was not conventional war, I do not know what it was.

And you westerners can stop mentioning rules and law — law didn’t apply to Serbia. US decided to bomb Serbian infrastructure, bridges, TV towers across whole country unilaterally, without UN resolution — for 78 days, to get it to sign capitulation on their terms.

It is exactly same thing Russia is doing now — bombing Georgia until it capitulates and accept peace on Russian terms.

8 years ago, it was Serbia, today it is Georgia… Basically, whole international system of checks and balances is thrown out the window and we will yet see whole effects of it.

When US recognized Kosovo independence, it violated UN SC resolution 1244, which says:

“Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other States of the region, as set out in the Helsinki Final Act and annex 2,”

“Reaffirming the call in previous resolutions for substantial autonomy and meaningful self-administration for Kosovo,”

“A political process towards the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing for substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region,”

1940s: India/Pakistan I, Arab-Israeli War.
1950s: Korea, Suez.
1960s: Congo, India/Pakistan II, Vietnam, the Six Day War, and that weird Football War between Honduras and El Salvador.
1970s: India/Pakistan III, Yom Kippur, Cyprus, Ogaden, Afghanistan.
1980s: Iran/Iraq, Falkland, Panama, Mauritania/Senegal.

Probably left out some, but I don’t see much of a pattern.