June 17, 1999: Here's what The Washington Post wrote five days after the war for KLA

If you have been a careful news reader then you know that (1) no one won the war in Yugoslavia, (2) in fact, Serbs won it, (3), no, NATO won it by becoming together, and (4) Bill Clinton won it because he said that the war was over with the bombings and that's what happened. In fact, all these claims are more or less true, but if you want to know who the real winner is, then it is the Kosovo Liberation Army. He won the war and took Kosovo.

Say what you want for The KLA, it has been one of the players in the recent Balkan drama that has known from the beginning exactly what it wanted and how it can achieve. In May 1998, I spoke to a man close to the KLA in Istanbul. His business card told me he was prime minister of the Republic of Kosovo and physician by profession named Bujar Bukoshi. At the time, Kosovo was under Serbian boots and hardly thought of anyone as a republic. All this will change, Bukoshi told me. It came true.

The KLA had a simple but effective plan. He'd kill Serb cops. Serbs would be retaliated, Alla-Balkans, with scattered repregnals and massacres. The West would be increasingly terrified until finally what happened in Bosnia decided to intervene. That is what happened, the United States and most of Europe would go to war on the side of the KLA.

It worked.

Now the same KLA has to deilitarize you with weapons removed from your hands until the province for which it fought is administered by NATO. But NATO did not lose any soldiers fighting Serbs. He fought a single man, Slobodan Milosevic, apologizing to the Serbian people for bridges, power plants and quasi-military targets that destroyed. Average Serbia, by contrast, to say, the average German of World War II was not our enemy.

The KLA thought differently. First, he lost a lot of soldiers. He immediately compromised NATO's ground troops. Its warriors were Kosovo volunteers or exiles from around the world who were aroused by the hope of independence by endangering their lives. They hate Serbs. They've always hated Serbs. If possible, you'd hate it even more.

Consider Palestine for a moment before 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel. That part of the world and that time are often mentioned these days because war has again produced a large Muslim people. Instead of focusing on the creation of the Palestinian diaspora, however, it would be more guiding to talk about Irguni and Bande Stern, Jewish terrorist organizations that fought not only Arabs but also Britons who ruled with what became known as Israel. Jewish terrorists wanted to make it impossible for the British to stay. They left, Arabs would be shown the place.

NATO could be in the same position as the British were in Palestine. I will never disarm the KLA. The Albanian border, tough and porous, is not far enough. Guns and pistols are easy to smuggle, and they are easier to hide. Even if some KLA leaders agree to be patient and reasonable, there is reason to be suspicious. Kosovo can be done for NATO what Palestine was done was for the British a country they hardly expected to leave.

Makthi for Europe especially for Russia is that of provinces who gain independence. That is why all are insisting that Kosovo remain within Yugoslavia. To be said otherwise produces diplomatic dilemmas, even crisis. But who's cheating? The KLA has not come so far to agree with something less than independence. Perhaps NATO thinks everything will be okay when Milosevic is imprisoned what a sweet thought or a penalty for war crimes. But the KLA has another agenda. He wants Independence.

If the past is really pre-accession, Kosovo will become independent maybe united with Albania, perhaps not. The KLA is the confusing element in the Balkans that has had its purpose clear and has not hesitated to shed blood to achieve what it wanted. If NATO were only half the size of the real KLA, it would plan how to achieve Kosovo's independence by avoiding another war. Otherwise, there will be an apology for James Baldwin's fire from next time. /Periscope