Daniel Larison, 1/31/2010:

The “massacre” at Racak was a key part of Clinton’s justification for intervening. The massacre was staged by the KLA. It never happened.

Human Rights Watch, 1/29/1999:

Human Rights Watch today categorically rejected Yugoslav government claims that the victims of the January 15 attack on Racak were either Kosovo Liberation Army soldiers killed in combat, or civilians caught in crossfire.

After a detailed investigation, the organization accused Serbian special police forces and the Yugoslav army of indiscriminately attacking civilians, torturing detainees, and committing summary executions. The evidence suggests that government forces had direct orders to kill village inhabitants over the age of fifteen.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting, report of day 161 of Milosevic war crimes trial:

Though pressed by the accused, Dr. [Helena] Ranta [Finnish forensics expert cited by Milosevic in his defense] refused to give an opinion on whether the killings occurred in battle or in a massacre. That, she said, is something the court will have to decide based on the evidence. How then, Milosevic demanded, can you describe the events at Racak as the killing of unarmed civilians? The doctor, trained to be precise, corrected his characterization of what she said. “There were no indications of people being other than unarmed civilians. I said nothing more or less than that.” [...]

Milosevic also spent considerable time trying to establish that the dead people were KLA fighters. Dr. Ranta held to her conclusion that there was nothing to indicate they were anything besides civilians. Milosevic produced a photograph of a grave of a KLA soldier killed in Racak on January 15, 1999. However, as Judge May pointed out, the presence of KLA at Racak is not contested. Last June, KLA Commander Shukri Buja testified that about 45 KLA soldiers were billeted near Racak. In the early morning hours of January 15, they underwent a surprise attack by Serbian forces that left 8 to 10 KLA soldiers dead with 8 more wounded. Having lost such a substantial part of their force, the KLA withdrew. According to KLA rules, they took their dead with them. Following the KLA withdrawal, forty-one villagers were killed, twenty of them in a nearby gully. It was these twenty who were the subject of Dr. Ranta’s investigations and her testimony to the Court.

While Dr. Ranta would not provide a definitive answer about whether they were killed in battle or were executed, she was clear that the scene was not staged.

Daniel Larison, 1/31/2010:

There is no evidence that there was a systematic or extensive policy of ethnic cleansing in the works. [...] Clinton portrayed intervention as something he did grudgingly to halt genocide, but there was no genocide to halt.

Human Rights Watch, 2/1/1999:

This report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by Serbian and Yugoslav government forces in Kosovo’s Drenica region during the last week of September 1998. As Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloševic wrapped up a summer-long offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), special forces of the Serbian police (MUP) and Yugoslav Army (VJ) committed summary executions, indiscriminately attacked civilians, and systematically destroyed civilian property, all of which are violations of the rules of war and can be prosecuted by the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). These atrocities took place in the face of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1199, passed on September 23, 1998, which demanded an immediate cessation of all actions by the Yugoslav and Serbian security forces against civilians.

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, 3/30/1999:

The capital of Kosovo, Prishtina, and its Albanian population is surrounded and under threat of being crushed from all sides by Serbian forces and militias. Parts of town are ablaze as is the case with scores of other towns in Kosovo. According to reports reaching the IHF, residents indicate that they are afraid to leave the burning city for fear of apprehension by death squads and other groups that extort monies in return for safe passage. A reign of systematic, state-sponsored terror by Serbian militias has taken hold all over Kosovo, apparently in retaliation for the on-going NATO air strikes on Serbian military targets, a program of terror that has been threatened explicitly beforehand by high Serbian officials. [...]

These pre-planned murders represent an attack upon the future of Kosovo, and can only be compared to the most inhumane cases of Nazi or Stalinist terror.

Jeffrey Fleishman and Lori Montgomery, Knight-Ridder, 4/9/1999:

SKOPJE, Macedonia. More than three months before NATO launched airstrikes against Serbian targets, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was readying a fresh offensive against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
As early as December, Serb special police and sinister paramilitary units quietly began to infiltrate Serbia’s southern province. Ignoring an October deal for peace, Milosevic massed Interior Ministry police and Yugoslav army troops in Kosovo and along its northern border in numbers far beyond those allowed by the cease-fire plan.

By mid-March, Serb forces had wired tunnels and bridges on the main southern highway with dynamite, and Serbian civilians had armed themselves to the teeth.

The long buildup to Yugoslavia’s ferocious campaign in Kosovo puts the lie to both Milosevic’s claim that the NATO attack spurred the ethnic Albanians’ exodus and to NATO claims of surprise at how quickly Yugoslav forces have moved.

Maybe it takes information longer to reach Conservatopia, due to gravity or whatnot.  I could never get my head around that stuff.

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