Kosovo and the myth of the Liberal response | Neil Clark (guardian)

"United States snowshoe and the stand of the army for the liberation of Kosovo for the same human values and principles... fighting for the KLA fights for the rights of man and American values." Therefore declared the neocon U.S. Senator (and the current enemy WikiLeaks) Joseph Lieberman in 1999 up to the military intervention by the United States against Yugoslavia of Slobodan Milosevic.

It would be interesting to hear what makes Senator Lieberman of the report of the Council of Europe - guard - dog first human rights Europe on his favourite band of freedom fighters. Report cites FBI and other sources of information, details of violations of the rights of the awful it claims were made by the NLA Western allies in the war against Yugoslavia, 11 years ago.

The Commission asserts that civilians - Serbian and non-KLA-support Kosovar Albanian detainees by the NLA hostilities 1999 - were killed in the North of the Albania and their kidneys extracted and sold on the black market. He appoints Hashim Thaci, the former head of the KLA and Kosovo Prime Minister as the pattern of a group of "mafia" engaged in criminal activity - including the exchange of heroin - since before the war in 1999. The report is an act not damning indictment only KLA, but Western policy also. And it also gives lie to the fiction that the Yugoslavia NATO war was, in the words of Tony Blair, "a battle between good and evil." between civilization and barbarism. "between democracy and dictatorship".

This is a fiction on the liberal left bought in. In 1999, Blair was seen as a deceitful troublemaker indebted to the U.S. but as an ethical leader against ethnic cleansing. But if the West had wanted to act morally in the Balkans and to protect the inhabitants of Kosovo there are alternatives to the war with the Serbs and other options that backup KLA - more violent group in Kosovo's politics. They may have supported real multi-party negotiations, or offered for the lifting of the sanctions on Belgrade if a peaceful solution to the problem of Kosovo could be found.

Instead of this, a violently anti-Serb attitude led West taking more than positions extremes and siding with an organization that same Robert Gelbard, Special Envoy of President Clinton in Kosovo, described as "without any question, a terrorist group." In 2000, the Sunday Times has revealed that, before the NATO bombing, American agents had been training the NLA. Shaban Shala, a commander of the KLA, stated that in 1996, he had met Albania North American and British agents.

This is the KLA violence against representatives of Serb civilians and Kosovo in 1998, which led to an escalation of the conflict with the Government in Belgrade, with atrocities on both sides, the Yugoslav State campaign. We learned the outbreak of war in March 1999 with NATO was the fault of the Serbian Government, but Lord Gilbert, Minister of defence UK, admitted "terms put to Mr. Milosevic in Rambouillet [International Conference prior to the war] were absolutely intolerable... it is quite deliberate.

The subsequent "humanitarian" bombing of 78 days of Federal Yugoslavia intensified massive ethnic cleansing of the Albanians in Kosovo by Yugoslav forces. Between 2,000 and 10,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed by these forces, with between 500 and 1,500 people killed by NATO bombing.

But even after the forced Russia pressures Kosovo Yugoslav withdrawal, cleaning and ethnic rights in the region abuse continued. Under occupation of NATO a approximately 200,000 Serbs, Roma and other minorities in South of Kosovo and the Serbian population together in Pristina, were forced from their homes.

A report on Kosovo by Minority Rights Group International said: "nowhere [in Europe] is it such a level of fear for minorities as they will be harassed or attacked, simply for whom they are". And in October 2010, a report by Human Rights Watch has said that "Roma and expelled related minority Europe Western Kosovo face discrimination and severe deprivation amounting to abuse of human rights". As for democratic progress, Sunday elections in Kosovo boycotted by the Serbian minority, have seen widespread allegations of fraud, with a reported 149% turnout in a domain.

Far from being "Good war" Tony Blair, aggression NATO on the Yugoslavia was the aggression against the Iraq as immoral way. But as the war in Iraq has become a discredited, so it is even more important for the supporters of "liberal interventionism" to promote the line that Kosovo was somehow a success. Report of the Council of Europe on crime KLA makes it that much harder to maintain heading. And if it plays its role to make more sceptical people in the West "liberal future interventions", is to be warmly welcomed.