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Show _ TheSalt LakeTribune OPINION Saturday, April10, 1999 Can the U.S.Settle for Anything Less Than Victory? The mantra is that having goneas far ian. Between 1945 and 1999, the Western conscience revolved against random killing, indeed against random damage. One reason we declined to bomba particular building in Belgrade last week is that there was rumored to be a Rem- niew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft. They said many shrewdthings,whichincluded a devastating enumeration of President Clinton’s defective planning. But all of them insisted that we had now brandtinit. through. The question is intellectually and of course geostrategically interesting. Hav- UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE ing got to this point, do we need to accept the proposition that thereis no alternative to victory? § We have lost the war weset out to among serious people about getting the Kosovars back to their homeland than aboutgetting them settledin placeslike win. The estimate as of Monday, Day 13 of the bombing, was that the remaining Guam. @ Since we havelost the purpose of the war, which wasto safeguard the Kosovar population in place, we ask: What should we accomplish for the refugees? The an- ethnic Albanians would beroutedout of Kosovo in five days. Already 1.1 million are displaced. There is zero prospect that by Sunday, the remaining Serbs in Kosovo can be got to stop in their tracks and head back home, either because they are now dead or because they are forced TO military to abandontheir ob- swer is obvious: We must find new homes for them. What can we do to straighten out the aggressors? Well, to invoke the military discipline of starting out at the extreme end of technically doable things and working ® What would wethen dowith the refugees? The infrastructure of their lives is gone. Their homes burned down, the farmland laid waste, schools, hospitals destroyed. A huge number of household ads are missing, many of them executedth In the past three weeks in Kosovo we have come close to deracination: a people uprooted. There is less talk What then would we do? Well, arrest Milosevic. We couldn’t evenget thesatisfaction of stringing him up, inasmuch as Nurembergjustice is out of moralstyle. We could, eventually, give him life without possibility of parole. We would be left with the problem of governing Yugo- slavia. The peopleofCroatia and Slove- nia and Montenegro and Macedonia, who are a twitchy ethnic assembly, would have vital interests in what would then evolve. rience? President Clinton is awfully terforces. We didn’t have an army — we society, we would make our expiation by had only a peacekeeping force in Mac- getting rid of the disastrously incompetent commander in chief, as the British got rid of Eden after the fiasco in Suez in 1956. It is ironie that instead of doing WASHINGTON — Whenhetook to Our idea of war President Clinton cited NATO these. Granted, the United States would when three soldiers disappeared. We suddenly recognized an urgent need for Apachehelicopters. Well, they weren't into the West andtakesit offthe table of A Sneak Peek at the New World Daaldar agrees with his old boss Bill ae that the credibility of NATO was ike in Kosovo and, heinsists, ‘Now even moreat stake because we can't belly of Europe. Whole populations are in terrified flight. A goodportionof Ser- fail.” His harsh assessment ofhis former nation that, every bit as muchas France keeping the peace on a continent whose then pressure for a pause, or a long ymbers are dwindlingin this post Cold beenatthis since World WarI and have ble to resist and we'll end up with the almost succeeded in creating a Europe thatis secure andstable, free and democratic, where values we hold dear as a nation are triumphing through thecontinent,” crows Ivo Daalder, Clinton's formerNational Security Council point man on Bosnia. “Onlyin the Balkans is an oldstyle Communist bucking the trend of history.” Anold-style Communist with an army that kind of threat among its member nations, because its armies share a common defense; that's another benefit of the alliance according to Robert Hunter. n we have with China and Japan.” Headdsthatthe recent addition of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, lliance has done a remarkable job of countries not so long ago trapped behind the Iron Curtain, “brings Central Europe For half a century now, the Atlantic infrastructure is in This fruit and cheese fight seemed frivolous compared with the trade at stake in China’s down-to-the wire strug- rubble or gle to makeit acrossthe threshold of the WTO, the club that certifies nations as housebroken members of the global played in American neighborhoods. trading system. Chinese Prime Minister It's almost unseemly that the Dow Jones industrial average shouldbe float- Zhu Rongji landed in California this week still without the prize of WTO membership. ing repeatedly in the 10,000-plusstrato- sphere,utterly unspookedbythegravity of events. Tourist bookings to Europe are enjoyinga typically busy It became a race to see how much the UnitedStates could extractin trade con- spring. The cessions before agreeing to Chinese membership. Drooling at the prospects Yugoslav government seems poised to politely handback threeprisoners. Even are U.S. banks,securities firms, telecom- Monica Lewinsky’s tasteless progression through the capitals of Europe is un- munications companies and wheat exporters, all of whom would benefit huge- daunted, either by the tragic events or by ly from a freer hand to do businessin the Chinese market. the reviews of her book, a bombcritics given the lack of preparation for those suggested might have been dropped in countries, the American people and Congress.” Lugar envisions more of these peacemaking actions in NATO's future, and planeloads on Belgrade and. s, amid the carnage and sufferthe sameallies who have united so Letting China into the WTO is an issue that seems to stand alone, uncontaminat- ed bymorenoisy questions involving hu- ainie.mindedly to punish Serbia have notjust in Europe. “Outof area, or out man rights in China, Chinese spying at U.S. laboratories and theintroduction of seen no reason tocall off the banana war tainted Chinese moneyintoU.S. political amongthemselveswhich, if anything, es- s the senator's slogan be- needs “a reliable set of campaigns, a process that might belikened to connecting a cesspool to a cess- calated this week when the World Trade Organization ruled onceagain in favor of the United States and against the Euro. allies wherever wehave vital interests.” Max Kampelman has an even grander vision: “I really see NATO asa vehicle pool Whatwe haveseenthis week is a peek pean Union through which we establish ourselves as This increases the possibility that sheep farmersin Italy, the chief base for American air assaults on Serbia, may the civilizer for the 21st century.” It's a tall order for the NATO summit coming to Washington next week. First the 50- at the new world in which trade issues and the imperatives of trade expansion define world relationships at least as muchas security and politics defined soon be subject to devastating American retaliation. Actually, bombing them year-old alliance must survive Kosovo. Sate ropean banana marketfor U.S. fruit exporters or Britain, fought bravely onoursidein sees a brighter side. “It seemsin its own perverse way that war has brought a greater cohesion to NATO, especially ~ tariffs to break opentherestrictive Eu- two world wars. Yellowribbons are dis- worst ofall worlds,” At least for the moment, Sen. Lugar internal and external. NATOprevents States carries out its threats to use the flames. Wearerelentlessly bombing a murky negotiation that will be impossi- that’s a threat to Serbia's neighbors, both iministration ambassador to NATO | Hunter, “to the corrosive compe bia’s ‘Milosevic will have done his deeds and entire history is one of war. “We have cheese that will go up if the United all grew up in? Warplanes are streaking across the colleagues for “a degree of incompetence that is truly astonishing,” causes Daaldar to share the deep concern of many NATOsupporters about what happens next. Without the immediate introduction of ground troops, he predicts, UNITED FEATURES SYNDICATE val economyis obvious, and stands in arked contrast, argues formerClinton NEWSDAY Pardonme,is this the same world we with an able assist from Milosevic. Ivo n on the 50th birthdayofthealli- would be about as devastating as the prohibitive U.S. tariffs on Italian sheep BY ROBERT RENO of history.” But history's haunting the Balkans, It's a question that greatly disturbs who see NATOas the greatest preer of the peace since Augustus Caealliance still has many support- the Foreign Relations Committee, Its the vehicle by which the United ites participates in the leadership of Hurope it is the way the U.S. no longer aply intrudes in Europe but fundantally participates.” The importance of that role in this via, we are considering a “need” to press further, to accomplish nothing. tive shield “because they've had enough stern Europe against the Soviets? That's a question somein Congress are sking as they ponder NATO’s modern Lugar’s clear on NATO's worth to U.S ‘ional interests. To this senior member that, and acknowledging the catastrophic dimensionsof our venture in Yugosla- many. At least they werecloser thanthe quired to do the job. They werein Ger- nations of Europe, where so many coun- evists, should the United States concern elf with an alliance formed to defend {a bipartisan group of people.” there, not in anything like the force re- tries have been both invadersand invaded, want to come under NATO's protec- libility as his first priority. What he jidn't tell us was why we should care. Why, when the Soviet Union no longer And Indiana Republican edonia, and life there was disrupted have a very black eye. We got into the Balkan mess in order to prevent something from happening. It happened anyway. We madenoserious provisions to anticipate the need to house the refugees, presumably because our goal was great power competition.” Hunter contends that the recently free COKIE ROBERTS STEVE ROBERTS t ‘waves to explain to the American people why he was goingto war over Ko- ichard Lugar worries that the Clinton Asia. The hell of it is: In a well-governed because we didn’t havethe right coun- have huge opportunity to do a lot of (he Credibility of NATO Is at Stake? ‘ar world, the Kitty Hawk was doing business in soldiers and executionersintheir tracks good at speaking at funerals. He would changed drastically between 1918 and 1942. In the first war 90 percent of casu- viministration “has missed an opportuty to usethe fiftieth anniversary to co- aircraft carrier it turns out we needed — gee problems. Wedidn't stop the Serbian (a) we could drop an atom bomb on Belgrade. Are we going to do that? No. (b) Wecould treat Belgrade in the way we treated Dresden and Tokyo in the Second World War, which is to say, all but obliterate it. ; on Capitol Hill but they fear their to circumvent anyneed for massive refu- And whowould preside over the expe- down to the other extreme(do nothing), Why Should the U.S. Care Whether s RABKIN“ (c) We could mobilize a ground force with instructions to fight its way either north through Kosovo to Belgrade, or down to Belgrade from Hungary. The figure most frequently given to accomplish this is 200,000 fighting troops. no alternative than to see the operation )se WWELL,T SUPPOSE THAT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOUR DEFINITION OF SS QUAGMIREIS... oy alties were military. In the second, 50 percent were military, 50 percent civil- WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY »s we have in Kosovo,wecan’tsettle for anything less than victory. 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