Western Plan for Bosnia

Your headline announced that “U.S., Allies Forge Strategy on Bosnia to Contain Fighting” (May 23). In the article there is a partial quote from Secretary of State Warren Christopher that the allies are “determined the international community will act together.” To do what? To contain fighting? Hardly. To save face is more to the point.

It must have always been clear, and it must now be clearer than ever, that only an international commitment to use overwhelming force will contain the fighting in Bosnia. Why is it that faced with the naked aggression of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait such an overwhelming force was committed and indeed used? Could it be that there was also a down-to-earth bread-and-butter issue involved, namely the protection of international oil interests in the Middle East? It is a pity that only a moral issue is involved in Bosnia.

Is this the “new world order”? It looks a whole lot like the old world order.

LAWRENCE KAUFMAN

Los Angeles

* The most recent Bosnia peace plan (truly, it should be called a piece plan) has left me with the belief that when the history of World War III is written, Bosnia in 1993 will be remembered in the same way as Manchuria in 1931 and the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937. Or as a variation of the Anschluss union of Nazi Germany and Austria in 1938 and the Munich sellout of the Sudetenland in same year, plus the follow-up annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

I wonder who will be Poland and when it will be September of 1939?

CARL B. CROSBY

Twentynine Palms

* Clinton, as a youth, found it convenient to sidestep personal responsibility in Vietnam. Now as a world leader he sidesteps national and global responsibility in Bosnia and the world must pay for his cowardice.

MATTHEW M. SKERTIC

Chatsworth

* In an ethnic war such as exists now in Bosnia-Herzegovina, nobody wins; it becomes survival of the fittest. The Serbs are determined to territorially and ethnically dominate the region.

I believe that the allies should support a joint Croat-Muslim coalition to fight for what is rightfully theirs. The allies should lift the arms embargo against the Muslims and support their efforts at achieving an equal right to land in Bosnia.

American forces should not become militarily involved; aerial bombing is a viable alternative, if necessary.

GARY TRAXLER

Port Hueneme

* What is this malarkey about “Desert Storm principles” that Robin Wright was referring to (Opinion, May 23)? I agree with her that aggression in Bosnia must be stopped, but don’t compare it to Desert Storm. If there had not been oil in Kuwait, we would not have been there. There were no “principles” involved!

LORRAINE KNOPF

Santa Monica