I'll let Grun deal with the historical inaccuracies you posted.
Bosnia broke the peace and therefore, it was bombed into compliance
Although I'm tempted to do one of those "roll eyes" thingies.
*****
The NATO attack on Yugoslavia began At 1900 hours GMT on 24 March
1999.
I still see NOTHING in the NATO charter that allows for a defensive alliance to attack a non-member nation, Yugoslavia, that had not attacked any NATO nation. I looked at your links but didn't see it. Where's the change to the NATO charter?
You build your case on UN SC resolutions (btw, you'd want to cite the one on SFOR, not IFOR) that give NATO
UN authority to use force.
Here's what I think is a short, fair overview from a Japanese source. I agree with it and I think it sums it up quickly.
Humanitarian Intervention and the Conflict in Kosovo
... NATO's Air Strike against Yugoslavia
The humanitarian intervention in Kosovo was legitimately started by some European countries in compliance with Resolution 1160(31 March, 1998). In summer 1998, a major sweep of Yugoslav forces across Kosovo broke out under the guise of fighting back the Kosovo Liberation Army. SC issued Resolution 1199(23 September 1998) which demanded the cessation of acts of violence against civilians and the withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces used for civilian repression. But Yugoslav refusal to obey the resolution lead to NATO's brandishing the threat of force on 12 October.
The wording of the resolutions was to the effect that Yugoslav non-compliance with the resolutions will lead to the consideration of further action and additional measures. Such wording has been interpreted as requiring SC another action for the mandate of military measures. Nowhere in the resolutions could be found the usual phrase, "to take all necessary measures" which has been understood as authorizing measures up to military operation.
By the autumn of 1998, all NATO nations agreed that there was a moral and political imperative to act. So it would have been no problem, if only SC had adopted another required resolution. The difficulty was that China and Russia had already declared themselves vehemently against using force and so the NATO nations had to rack their brains, in vain, for a legal ground.
The most assertive proponents of military action, the US and the UK, seem to have thought that the existing Resolutions 1160 and especially 1191 based on Chapter VII and the Yugoslav forces in blatant neglect of the demands provided sufficient ground for NATO to use force. The notion was politically adequate but could not be legally sufficient. Other countries conceded the legal fragility of using force and tried to search for other grounds than the resolutions. The reasons they devised included Europe's prominently high standard of human rights protection, imminent risk of humanitarian catastrophe as documented by the UN Secretary-General and an inactive SC paralyzed accidentally with the threat of vetoes by China and Russia....
Nonetheless, the use of NATO forces against Yugoslavia violated the
NATO charter. That's what we're talking about here. In short, while the UN may have authorized it, while NATO accepted the authorization and exercised it, that doesn't mean it isn't a violation of the NATO charter.
Both IFOR and SFOR had NATO components
as well as components from other countries. It was NATO led, but it was a UN operation, operating under UN directives.
Here's another summary:
Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution responds: the UN Security Council passed three resolutions indicating that events in Kosovo represented threats to regional peace and security (a finding that can trigger such authorization) and even though it did repeatedly demand that Belgrade act in ways Milosevic refused to follow, the Council never authorized the use of force because Russia and China opposed doing so.
There was no UN SC authorization for those airstrikes. Both China and Russia, permanent members said they would veto such a resolution at the time. Remind you of anything?
