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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert B. who wrote (11625)	6/13/1999 12:38:00 PM
From: John Lacelle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Robert, OK, I will answer your question. As I understand it, you are pointing out some kind of hypocracy on my part because I am angry at Clinton for starting this war in Yugoslavia and the resulting economic problems that will come, but that I was not mad at George Bush for the economic problems that came after the end of the Gulf War. First let me compare and contrast the two situations: 1) Saddam Hussain, an unelected dictator that built the worlds 4th largest army. First he used it agains Iran resulting in millions of refugees and over a million dead Iranians. Of course we didn't care cause we hate Iran. Then in a bold move he overan Kuwait, a peaceful, pro-USA country with major oil reserves. His troops were under orders to continue taking countries such as Bharain, Quatar, UAE, Saudia Arabia, until they met resistance. However due to the rapid reponse of the Joint Chiefs, President Bush, and others, Saddam decided to dig in Kuwait and wait and see. It was a master grab at oil and his intentions were to make himself the most powerful man on earth. He would have succeeded if not for George Bush. Lets look at Yugoslavia. The nation is a democracy. In fact, Slobodon Milosevic became President of Yugoslavia by a greater margin than Bill Clinton. The CIA heavily funded his opponent, a woman from his own party. It backfired. Yugoslavia threatened no other nation. They were fighting a civil war against a terrorist, drug running bunch of Islamic fanatics known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The KLA had its orgins from the old Ultra Communist government of Albania, now defunct. There is no government in Albania anymore. The tactics used by the Yugoslavian National Army (JNA) are the same tactics used by the United States against Viet Nam in the south. You go into an area with heavy enemy activity, you destroy the village, kill the occupants, and declare the village "saved". Call it ethnic cleansing, call it whatever you want. In our own American Civil War, the same tactics were used against the South. In fact, it was General Sherman who coined the phrase "War is hell", as his army smashed its way through Georgia in its march to the sea. The Union Army didn't just burn villages, it burned entire cities such as Atlanta. This is a fact. War is hell. Both Lincoln and Milosevic fought to win. Just because us Americans can sit back and party because we got 10,000 nuclear weapons and the most powerful military ever put together by any nation, does not give us the right to tell all these other nations that they have no right to defend itself from insurgency just because it looks bad on CNN. If CNN had covered the American Civil War, what do you think that might have looked like on TV? I am not asking you to believe me. In fact, you don't have to believe anything I say. Just promise me this: That you will always think for yourself and not let Dan Rather or Peter Jennings tell you what reality is. -John