The barbaric Serb warlord is the Hitler of the late 20th century, the wolf loosed on the lambs of the European landmass. The slaughter of innocents will not stop till he is neutralized, caged, or destroyed. That grisly end should be at the top of NATO's target list.

It was Milosevic who has done this before, going back a decade. French President Jacques Chirac, in a dignified address to the French people, said Milosevic has killed 200,000 people over the past decade, casting him as a throwback to ''the Dark Ages.'' Playing on Serb paranoia, propagandizing the undeniable excesses of his foes, Milosevic has carved his bloody swath through Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, now Kosovo.

He is a one-man crime wave masquerading as a nationalist hero. His father shot himself, his mother hanged herself, his country is killing itself. And NATO should elevate the Milosevic scalp to the top of the bombers' hit list. His appetite is insatiable, his methods criminal. ''A serial ethnic cleanser,'' in the deft phrase of NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. He is flooding Albania, Montenegro, and the rest of the Balkans with refugees in the tens of thousands. He is crude and cruel, fond of deputizing gangster associates like the infamous Arkan to terrorize the helpless.

Milosevic is audacious; despite NATO threats, he moved 45,000 men into Kosovo in advance of the deadline. He has undoubtedly advanced his timetable for the genocide that was planned before the first NATO bomb fell. As in Bosnia, his thugs were ordered to murder opposition leaders and fighters, roust women and children, torch houses, separate men from the rest, and march them off to burial pits.

Blaming NATO's bombing for the atrocities is like blaming the fire department for the arsonist's handiwork. Milosevic survives by recognizing the West's reluctance to bomb civilians or to commit ground troops that would suffer losses and prove politically unpopular.

Europe swallowed the deconstruction of Bosnia for years before gagging. All those ''never again'' vows from Holocaust memorial services proved hollow when Milosevic's storm troopers went on the rampage. This time, for geopolitical reasons that are still not sufficient for a lot of America's people and politicians, the West's response is more muscular, aggressive, and fateful.

Should or could we have avoided the situation we are in? Perhaps. But now we have to deal with the fact that we are in a round-the-clock shooting war, with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing daily. The Greeks and Italians are wavering, frightened by the refugee tide. In a dozen European capitals, Serb immigrants and sympathizers burn flags and denounce NATO and the United States. What's the proper course now that we're in this fight?

Finish him, if we can. Bomb harder, closer, tighter. If Milosevic gets waxed, great. If we can bomb him to the bargaining table, that's less great, but OK. At a minimum, we have to ''degrade,'' in that curious Pentagon lingo, his war machine. If we lose our will in the West, if NATO is faced down, if mobs outside embassies intimidate Europe's wobbly statesmen, then Milosevic and all the other Milosevics of this world will be stronger, and the civilized world weaker.

The European leaders begged us to be NATO's big stick. But some of them turn fainthearted when the bullets fly.

In domestic politics, Congress is unhappy with the choices, and the people are deeply divided. President Clinton shows more resolve than most in Congress. One US plane goes down Saturday, and the media go berserk. You can't run a war without taking some casualties of your own. As soon as there's one Yank pilot dead, or five, or 10, Clinton's domestic political support starts draining away. There'll be the ''we told you so'' chorus from Congress, and not just from grumpy Republicans.

No one wants to see US troops rolling into Kosovo for a pitched battle with Serb units and the inevitable terror attacks from Serb sappers. But what if we have a bunch of NATO soldiers taken prisoner? How do we not go get our guys? It is the realization that far worse might lie ahead that makes Clinton dig in. The president who bugged out of Somalia after 18 Americans died in an ambush, who wavered on Bosnia till all of Europe was shamed into asking for our help, is the same president who bombed Iraq during impeachment and who ramped up the bombing war on Milosevic.

Those who believed Clinton was a draft-dodging wimp skirt-chaser who was too chicken to inhale now comprehend a re-elected and impeachment-proof commander in chief committed to stopping the soccer-field massacres even at the price of US casualties.

If you really believe in ''never again,'' you have to admit that Kosovo qualifies as a late-20th-century mini-Holocaust. No, we didn't intervene in Rwanda, or Burundi, or Eritrea; we don't go where the Tamil Tigers or the Khmer Rouge operate. We cannot do everything everywhere to stop slaughter. But Kosovo is on Europe's doorstep; NATO had to intervene.

The Greeks say a fish rots from the head. In the recalibration of NATO's bombing targets, the list should start with Milosevic. The Mad Dog of Belgrade is a walking advertisement for war crimes. We never could pot Saddam; more's the pity. That's no reason not to have a go at Slobodan. He's earned his right to be killed. His name should top the list.

David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.

This story ran on page A23 of the Boston Globe on 03/31/99. © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company

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