Tokyo is urging Beijing to accept U.S. explanations that the bombing of its Belgrade embassy was a genuine mistake. Maybe it was. But why automatically rule out the possibility it was a devious scheme by rogue hawks in the powerful U.S. military/intelligence machine to encourage China to veto any U.N.-backed compromise scheme for Kosovo?
The hawks have done this sort of thing before. The best example was the probable CIA staging of the U-2 spy plane crash within Soviet territory in 1960, a move that succeeded beautifully in sabotaging the emerging detente between U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev.
The U.S. military, with cooperation from their Soviet opposite numbers, managed to extend the Cold War and their massive budgets for another 30 years as a result.