Dear Editor
Dear Editor Kosovo Dissent I have been associated with The New Leader since the March 29, 1965 issue of the magazine featured my "Moscow Summer," which Marshal Josip Broz Tito had banned. The...
...The same has been the case in countries ruled by other undemocratic types after heavy air attacks or the imposition of economic sanctions...
...If, in the end, only Kosovo comes under international supervision, that will be a horrible tragedy for the rest of Yugoslavia and the entire Balkan region...
...I also have great sympathy for the Albanians in Kosovo, several of whom—including Adem Dentaci, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army's politicai wing—Imet and became close to three decades ago when we were all political prisoners together in Sremska Mitrovica...
...It is naïve to think a NATO invasion designed to tum Kosovo into an international protectorate will result in Milosevic losing power...
...Quite the contrary, it will strengthen him...
...and NATO not only miscalculated Milosevic's reaction to their military initiative, but the Clinton Administration has shown itself to be remarkably ignorant of the situation on the ground in Kosovo...
...Washington, D.C...
...This has led to grossly inaccurate statements, like President Clinton's declaring at the start of the air campaign that use of the Albanian language was forbidden by the Milosevic regime...
...Witness Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, or Fidel Castro in Cuba...
...We've seen where that can lead to before...
...Moreover, in Belgrade last October I watched a one-hour afternoon program in Albanian on the main Serbian television channel...
...3. The U.S...
...Nor can ground forces, unless their objective is to overthrow the central government...
...and NATO officials declare that "the goal of the air campaign is to destroy what Milosevic values most," they only show how poorly democratic leaders understand the essence of undemocratic regimes...
...Nevertheless, I fully agree with the resolute condemnation of NATO's air war by the really brave and important Yugoslav democrats, despite your inclination to disparage them...
...But I don't think NATO bombs are the answer...
...value personal political power most of all...
...Incorrect charges by the highest U.S...
...Your argument, though, is almost exclusively a moral one...
...The NL then arranged to have it published as a book by Farrar Straus Giroux while I was in a Yugoslav prison...
...Air strikes cannot destroy that...
...As an opponent of Slobodan Milosevic from the beginning of his reign, I have published several dozen articles against his ideology, perhaps best described as "National Communism," in American, Russian and (until they ceased to exist last October) independent Yugoslav newspapers andjournals...
...I have no particular quarrel with that, but I think it is important to make clear that the United States has a strong national interest as well in preventing Yugoslavia's dictator from fomenting chaos in the Balkans...
...It is because the leading Belgrade democrats understand all this that I support their criticism of the war...
...In sum, I think the so-called Kosovo war was poorly conceived, without any serious thought being given to what should have been its primary objective: changing the regime in Belgrade...
...He will go on ruling his isolated, virtually destroyed country and may even become a popular hero who lost the battle for Kosovo but did not surrender...
...Until one month ago, the independent Albanian-language press was much freer than the Serbian independent press...
...That was never the case...
...Of course, their people are suffering enormously, but dictators don't care about that...
...Chicago, III...
...For it will mean that Slobodan Milosevic will stay in power for the next 10 years, at least...
...It is true the Albanians had begun to build a parallel school system in Kosovo, but that was in reaction to the regime's request that the public schools use official Yugoslav textbooks (in Albanian) and halt the decades old practice of importing textbooks from Tirana...
...For the following reasons: 1. Destroying military targets, infrastructure, civilian manufacturing plants, etc...
...Milosevic et al...
...will not weaken Milosevic...
...Furthermore, when President Clinton, General Wesley K. Clark and other U.S...
...Adan Rouchefeld...
...2. The first and most important victim of the air war was described with precision on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times (April 1) by the founder and editor-in-chief of the independent Radio B-92 station in Belgrade, Veran Mafic: "NATO's bombs have blasted the germinating seeds of democracy out of the soil of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro and insured that they will not sprout again for a very longtime...
...and NATO figures are a great gift for Milosevic...
...So I appreciate the humanitarian concerns that motivated the "Between Issues" column supporting Operation Allied Force in the April 5 issue...
...Why...
...This should not surprise us...
...Mihajlo Mihailov Realpolitik You make a persuasive case for firmly approving NATO's efforts to reverse the cruelties the Kosovars have experienced at the hands of Slobodan Milosevic's murderous military forces and "special police" ("Between Issues," NL, April 5...
...He knew what he was doing when he accepted air strikes instead of signing the Rambouillet agreement...
Vol. 82 • April 1999 • No. 5
