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

To: Frank Sheridan who wrote (435)	3/28/1999 6:13:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 17770

<<Already we see Greece and Turkey at each others throats. Russia is aligning with the Serbs. Riots against NATO are breaking out in a dozen countries. This action against Kosovo could serve to break up or at least further damage NATO. All of this after just having absorbed Hungary, The Czech Republic and Poland into NATO .........The Serbs are not going to just roll over and die ...What makes us think that NATO can take on Serbian regular army troops on their own turf?>> There are no traps but those of our own making. Instead of balance of power treaties (NATO and Warsaw Pact), we now have for the first time in human history, a single military alliance powerful enough to control the excitement of its most restive members. It includes Turkey and Greece, England and France, and many other pairs of peoples who have been fighting for a thousand years. The extension of NATO to the east is critically important. Hungary will not invade or threaten to defend Hungarians mistreated in Rumania. Mighty Russia dare not defend its long-time south slav brothers (Russia's mobilization precipitated WWI when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia). Soon NATO and EU (10 years?) will be knocking on Russia's gate and it will have to decide whether it will fight the world's economies united or join the civilized world. The same goes for China. It is very important for the world to learn that no one offends humanity without condign punishment. It hardly matters in long-run scheme of things if NATO suffers losses, or if Serbia gets in a few good blows. Serbia must cease its genocide. It is late, but not too late. If to stop them we must obliterate Belgrade, too damned bad. I trust NATO will warn the people to leave before the carpet-bombing starts, but people must learn that they are responsible too for the tactics of their leaders. This war was entered into reluctantly, but I am pleased that it came. Every one who sneers at Chamberlain and Daladier for Munich needs to recognize that this is the critical moment of our time. Unity of the major NATO powers will be strengthened by exercising their resolve. We too seldom recognize that Europe values human rights even more than the United States, and has more powerful (if slower) enforcement of them. Europe is a far more powerful idea than merely an alliance. It needs to grow and spread itself wider, stronger, over much more extensive areas -- never by conquest -- but by voluntary adherence of countries that agree the fundamental ideas of civilization. Needless to say, I believe that NATO should expand as coextensively as European countries wish to join, and that the US and Canada should weld their alliance into an eternal bond to protect the freedom, and the peace, of the world. We need a really good NATO song. Like "Freiheit."

To: Frank Sheridan who wrote (435)	3/28/1999 5:39:00 PM
From: Susan Lynn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Yes, the actions of NATO are creating global conflict and controversy. However, NATO did give its word to the Kosovo Albanians that they would be supported if they would sign the peace agreement. If this promise were to prove empty, how would that reflect on the credibility of NATO? If NATO can't defend peace-seeking parties who agree to a plan to end hostilities -- what good is it anyway?? I question the wisdom of making such a promise in the first place, without polling the international community and obtaining support from the U.N., but a promise is a promise and unless NATO is to be viewed as a straw organization, its promises should be kept.