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

To: The Philosopher who wrote (2151)	4/6/1999 5:15:00 PM
From: Meredith Cullen	Respond to of 17770

<If you think the refugees..> well said! We're seeing the conflict totally from one side. Meredith

To: The Philosopher who wrote (2151)	4/6/1999 5:17:00 PM
From: Paul Merriwether	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 17770

Christopher You have laid out a great case--only if you think of Serbs and Kosovites as "Lions and Hyenas"(or pick your pair of competing animals) in a National Geographic documentary. To say that these folks have been fighting since for ever, and THEREFORE will continue to do so for ever is to deny progress in human beings. The fact is that we are talking about human beings who over time, with education and exposure to democracy(and the american way :) ) can be convinced to coexist. The dividend will be a stable Europe for the next millenium.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (2151)	4/6/1999 6:56:00 PM
From: Thomas G. Busillo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Christopher, as for a through d - there was one Sbrenecia. How many others have there been in Bosnia since the Dayton accords? Do you know why there's a ceasefire now as opposed to last week at this time? Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that 90% of the Ethnic Albanians have already been purged? There's a "ceasefire" because he's accomplished his goals. The special police in the South and West are moving back to their barracks in the Northern and Central parts of Kosovo because there are no longer any Ethic Albanians there to either slaughter or rob and send packing. In other words - he won. He got exactly what he wanted at the cost of a few missle batteries, 4 bridges, a few government buildings, gas processing plants, etc. He won. He got exactly what he wanted and he did that while "standing up" to NATO. That is an inadequate outcome both in terms of NATO credibility and the people who NATO was obstensibly supposed to be helping in the first place, Kosovo's Ethnic Albanian population. We have a ceasefire at present on the ground. See the above. That ceasefire is basically "I won, so - game over." Any further bombing we do cannot be justified as trying to save the refugees. It's not "saving" the refugees. It's being able to produce a political settlement on our terms that returns them to their homes under the best conditions possible. People who have seen their family members and neighbors shot and have been told to either leave or be killed are not going to walk straight back into Kosovo into the arms of the murderers because CNN is broadcasting news of a "ceasefire". It is purely for revenge. It further inflicts misery without need or moral or legal basis. No. It's a forward-thinking approach to the refugee problem that we had a hand in creating. Our goal should be getting as many of those people back to their homes as possible in an environment where they do not have to worry about having the men in their family being taken away and shot because they are of fighting age. That is, those that haven't been slaughtered already. I'm sure Primakov's Moscow would like to give him sanctuary if possible, but at what price? Is he worth? $5-7 billion in IMF aid? I do however think Clinton will show typical Clintonesque "morality" in his response to the ceasefire. He'll take the most poltically expedient most myopic possible approach to the situation. He couldn't care less about those refugees. I'd be shocked if Clinton didn't stop NATO bombing within 24 hours. And if he does that the end result will be what? Milosovic will have gotten exactly what he wanted and the credibility of the NATO Alliance will have been irrevocably damaged. Of course, then we'll have two weeks of the Clinton spin team on Larry King, Geraldo, etc. telling us how the mission was such a success and how effective NATO was. Regards, Tom