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

To: Thomas G. Busillo who wrote (2197)	4/6/1999 8:21:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 17770

Where we differ is in only one thing. Will the situation of the refugees be better if we keep bombing, or if we stop bombing, at least temporarily, and negotiate the issues, through the U.N., not NATO or a U.S. dominated process, which why on earth should SM trust? If our goal is as peaceful a Yugoslavia and Kosova as possible five years from not, and as many refugees resettled as possible five years from now, negotiating is more likely to achieve that than continued bombing. If we keep bombing, the citizens of Serbia become increasingly convinced that our goal is not to help the refugees (how does bombing help them now) but pure brute destruction of their country. Remember history: the seeds of WW II were put in place the moment we forced a cruel and vicious treaty on Germany at the end of WW I. Cause and effect. Something our present government doesn't seem to understand. Clinton thinks there is no effect of irresponsible things he does (like having sex with interns in the Oval Office, perjuring himself, etc.) But the Serbs have no reason to be beguiled by Clinton. They won't forget. Cruelty now will a) not achieve our goals and b) foster even deeper seeds of hatred which will make a lasting solution even harder to achieve. BTW, five years for resettlement is a pretty short target, given the infrastruture that has to be rebuilt and the fact that in Bosnia it's been what, six years, and many of the refugees are still not resettled even though there's no war going on there and the bombing/destruction was less than in Kosovo, land records weren't destroyed, etc. Just figuring out who owns what is going to be a lengthy, multi-year process. Realistically, there will still be refugees ten years from now, and maybe far beyond that. But American policy makers are sort of like the average mutual fund manger -- can't see beyond the next quarter. <g>