The bad war.

• Author: Berner, Thomas F.
• Position: 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...