In the meantime, in another embarrassing development, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Sunday widened an investigation after a nine-page document detailing the alliance's rules of engagement in Kosovo appeared on the Internet. A British Ministry of Defense spokesman told United Press International that NATO took charge of the investigation after initial inquiries by British officials were triggered by the appearance of the document on the Internet. The courtier press faithfully reflects the vagaries of the regime. But, as FAIR points out, There is no mention that these years were also a period in which Russia's economy experienced an unprecedented economic collapse, as the economy shrunk by close to 50 percent in eight years. The massive decline in living standards and the virtual collapse of the health care system led to large reductions in life expectancy for the Russian population.
Brilliance is in the eye of the beholder.
But in the media, March 24 also marked the beginning of a remarkable process of historical revision in which the picture of the previous three months of diplomacy at Rambouillet was seriously distorted. In order to better serve the war effort, establishment news outlets brazenly rewrote the history of pre-war negotiations, presenting Belgrade as rejectionist and the U.S. as reasonable and accommodating. But one month later, on the eve of war, Erlanger's reporting underwent a remarkable sea change. But in fact, as Ackerman says, the Serbs rejected the Rambouillet document because it envisioned the occupation of Kosovo by NATO troops that would have the right to move throughout all of Yugoslavia.