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The War as Seen from Serbia (Ronald Hilton, USA, 03/27/99 2:50 am)
Jaqui White sends this report from a friend whose family still lives in a town near Belgrade:
"She has spoken with them five times during the last 24 hours. The
borders are all closed, the stores are all closed and boarded, there is
no gas, food nor anything. Her father has gone to his country home,
where she hopes he will be safe. She worries because there is a huge
power facility on the outskirts of his town which conceivably might be a
target. Her sister is furious with her because she (my friend) lives
in this country with her American husband, and the US is, of course,
part of NATO and part of the bombing force. There is much talk of a
third World War. Although my friend is only 29, she is told that the
situation began when after World War II the land which had been Serbia
for eons were forced into accepting Albanians. The Albanians
multiplied rapidly and wished to take over that part of Serbia, to
which Serbia will NEVER acquiesce. Palestine becoming Israel comes to
mind. She says the Serbs and the Albanians have been fighting for
twenty years over this, and since Yugoslavia is so mountainous in that
area no one can win. She further says that everyone is equating this
with Vietnam - it is a lose lose situation and bombing will do no good
whatsoever.
As my friend was speaking to her father, he
stated that it probably was just alarmist warnings, and at that moment
the sirens and air raid alerts sounded. My friend, who was watching
CNN, told him to dash to the basement, because SHE could see the planes
taking off from Italy!"
My comment: There is a Serb
viewpoint, but the Serbs do not understand the international picture.
Jaqui mentions Israel. I thought of the Mexican mass immigration into
the United States. I refer simply to the chemistry of the situation,
not to rights and wrongs.
More on The War as Seen from Serbia
As expected, the Kosovo situation has aroused strong but diverse feelings
among WAISers. Dwight Peterson shows no sympathy for the Serbs and compares
their acts in Kosovo with the Holocaust. Milosevich is a monster who must
be stopped and punished. But, Dwight concludes, the Europèans should take
action, and the U.S. should have stayed out.
My comment: Ideally, Dwight is right, but in fact without the U.S., NATO
would have lacked the necessary cohesion. I view NATO as the main source of
stability in the world today, and I hope the present enterprise will make
it "a more perfect union." If it fails, there will be at best a stalemate
as in Iraq or at worst something like chaos.
Ronald Hilton - 03/26/99
Some responible and well-informed people think the bombing of Kosovo is a
mistake resulting from our failure to make a hard assessment of the
Albanians and the implications of our actions. Robert Gard writes:
"While I'm no supporter of Milosovich, I do believe too little
attention has been paid to the provocations of the KLA in ambushing Serbian
police and kidnapping and killing Serb civilians. The KLA can then melt
back into the villages. This isn't to excuse indiscriminate attacks on
villages, but rather to point out that it's difficult to try to cope with a
hit and run guerrilla force under these circumstances."
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