NATO Action in Kosovo

Americans need to accept the fact that the actions of the U.S. and its NATO clients are not really very different from those of the Yugoslavs. The Serbs murder the Albanians with tanks and artillery and NATO murders the Serbs (and some Albanians) with bombs and missiles. Not a very brave or honorable way for either side to conduct affairs between nations, especially since it is an internal dispute between an independent nation and a rebellious province.

When the war ends, as all wars do, the innocent victims will still be dead, the guilty will receive medals and recognition and nothing will be permanently settled. It makes me wonder what happened to the concept of justice for war crimes, such as waging offensive war or killing civilians, as pronounced at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. As in Vietnam, will we have to destroy another country to save it?

DAVID JENSEN

El Segundo

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In the last seven years the hundreds of thousands of rapes, murders and general “ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by Serbs on Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians and now Kosovars are mind-boggling. Yet Tom Hayden has the chutzpah to write, “Where are the voices of protest against the suffering inflicted on civilians and children by our bombardment of Serbia?” and “liberal Democrats remain strangely tongue-tied” (Commentary, May 5).

One can only assume that had Hayden been writing in the last analogous European situation, WWII, he would have wrung his hands and bemoaned our bombardment of Nazi Germany. I deeply regret any innocent civilian casualties; but the alternative is to never go to war--let slavery exist in our South (stopped by a terrible war) and let the Hitlers and Milosevics of the world run rampant!

DEVON SHOWLEY

Cypress

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Hayden’s enumeration of the tragic consequences of NATO (largely U.S.) military action against Serbia is right on the money. The Clinton administration’s callousness in shrugging off a high level of civilian casualties through “collateral damage,” as well as its hypocrisy in intervening in the Balkans while ignoring real killing fields like Rwanda, is appalling.

Nor are the historical analogies offered by our government of any substance. Unlike 1914, European peace is not seriously threatened by Balkan instability. And ethnic cleansing (mostly the forcible expulsion, rather than the killing of civilians) should not be compared to the monumental horrors of the Holocaust.

ANTHONY BRUNDAGE

Claremont