Rethinking Intervention
Correspondence Rethinking Intervention William Kristol and Robert Kagan are partially right about two things: The United States under a Democratic president is uniquely at one with its NATO...
...Not likely...
...But who will willingly sacrifice a son or daughter based upon Clinton’s explanation of events...
...then, inexplicably, they try to make a very weak case for supporting the present action in Kosovo...
...David Lowenthal Princeton, MA I sincerely hope the leaders of the Republican party don’t fall into the same gaping hole that William Kristol and Robert Kagan did in their editorial “Kosovo and the Republican Future” (April 5/April 12...
...Parents, meanwhile, must work with other members of their child’s “Individualized Education Program” team to reach a “consensus” about how the child will be educated—resulting in de facto education policy by committee...
...The United States will only gain credibility internationally by having leadership that is credible...
...WBUR and WUMB are also NPR member stations...
...How is it that those who call urgently for ground troops never even mention Russia’s threats to help the Serbs if our intervention enlarges...
...8) “degraded” his military, but at the same time, by destroying oil refineries, power stations, railroads, and bridges, made life for the ordinary Serb very difficult and put into question the ability of any Serbian regime to preserve order afterward...
...WGBH is not the NPR “affiliate” in Boston...
...This page intentionally left blank - advertisement I would also question Sen...
...Had we the foresight, the amount of money we have already spent on this war would have been much better spent on assistance to Russia, a country desperately trying to establish firm footings for its newfound liberty...
...Paul F. Steidler Arlington, VA...
...At some point a real war will undoubtedly involve sacrifice, cause significant pain, and require bold military action...
...When Boris Yeltsin, the former darling of the West and the head of the prodemocratic forces in Russia, speaks in the angriest tones against the use of NATO ground troops and warns of retargeting atomic missiles against NATO countries, can we continue to sneer...
...Under President Clinton’s leadership we have: (1) made Kosovo a NATO problem rather than one to be dealt with primarily by the Russians and other countries with traditional ties to Serbia...
...Department of Education’s recent issuance of 300plus pages of regulations to govern special education...
...Second, your readers might infer that NPR distributed Lurtsema’s program, Morning Pro Musica...
...Not one more serviceman should be asked to die to satisfy the president’s threats or promises to other countries...
...That should be the Republican position...
...Marvin Maurer West Long Branch, NJ Guilty As Charged Iwas dismayed to learn of Jonathan V. Last’s article which compared one of my poems to a Don Marquis poem (“Renaissance Man,” April 5/April 12...
...7) united the whole country behind Milosevic and weakened the domestic opposition forces that had been building against him...
...They do a fine job of summarizing Clinton’s foreignpolicy failures...
...President Clinton cannot, however, provide the leadership necessary to develop and execute a strategy to resolve the conflict in Kosovo, and the presidency is the only office from which the country can be led...
...No sale...
...I remembered it as something I loved to recite...
...The failure in Kristol and Kagan’s analysis is that, just as one cannot build a house on shifting sand, we cannot successfully fight a war with an admitted liar serving as president...
...But we can’t, and shouldn’t, try to intervene everywhere with our full might...
...I love the creative process too much to ever knowingly copy someone else’s work...
...Burt Solomon Arlington, VA Education by Committee Chester Finn and Nina Shokraii Rees make a strong case for blockgranting education programs covered by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which Congress is due to reauthorize this year (“Flex Those Ed Muscles,” April 5/April 12...
...and (9) intensified the widespread resentment of America as an arrogant bully that uses its massive power against small nations...
...The absurdity of federal micro-management of education has spiraled to new heights with the U.S...
...I regret the editors of THE WEEKLY STANDARD chose to publish the article without ever contacting me for comment...
...In my opinion, this is not a fair act of reporting...
...4) failed to provide for the streams of refugees that were bound to pour out of Kosovo...
...That was as true when Willie Keeler and his teammates roamed the land as when McGwire and Sosa went at it...
...James Rigby Seattle, WA I am absolutely appalled by William Kristol and Robert Kagan’s editorial...
...Norman Ravitch Riverside, CA I must ask William Kristol and Robert Kagan: Is it anything other than high-tech hubris to tell the Russian prime minister to stick to his domestic economic problems and not meddle with our mission in Serbia...
...What is conservative about their mania for bombing Yugoslavia without any prospect of desirable results...
...Indeed, the department is not shy about telling principals or parents how to act...
...Upon comparing the two poems, I now recognize Marquis’s poem as one I must have memorized as a young man...
...How can they countenance the waste of resources and ?lan on Serbia, when there are greater threats from China and the Middle East...
...No more...
...The department notes that when it comes to disruptive and troublesome students, “school personnel may remove a child with a disability for up to ten school days, and for additional removals of up to ten school days for separate acts of misconduct, as long as the removals do not constitute a pattern...
...6) dictated terms at Rambouillet that showed no historical understanding of Kosovo’s importance to all Serbs...
...President Clinton has put our troops in precarious positions over 60 times during his presidency...
...Indeed, I quite agree with some of his points...
...3) undertaken the massive bombardment of Serbia, thereby assisting Milosevic by removing outside observers and allowing him to accelerate his plan for ethnic expulsion (not genocide...
...Ground troops...
...In fact, Lurtsema has never appeared regularly on NPR...
...At such time, for lack of leadership, our efforts will likely collapse and the president will issue a press release declaring victory...
...Murray Horwitz Vice President Cultural Programming National Public Radio Washington, DC Pitch Out I enjoyed Steven Slezak’s review of my book about the rise and fall of the 1890s Baltimore Orioles, Where They Ain’t (“Baltimore’s Birds,” April 19...
...I would remind the authors that ground troops—lots of them— have not been able to solve this problem that is centuries old and very complex...
...The dominant pro football team of the past few years is owned by its fans (in a league that practices revenue sharing...
...McCain’s conclusion that although President Clinton has failed to preserve our nation’s credibility so frequently, that “is not a reason to deny him his authority to lead NATO in this action...
...Correspondence Rethinking Intervention William Kristol and Robert Kagan are partially right about two things: The United States under a Democratic president is uniquely at one with its NATO allies in Western Europe, now governed by socialists...
...I found the poem on a lined notepad in my own handwriting, with no title and no attribution, along with much of what I had written while in the Navy...
...The Russian bear is weak, but is it so weak that it can’t find ways of striking out at us, or won’t harbor resentments...
...In the article, Last made a serious charge and never asked me for comment...
...I regret that my fondness for the poem, my lack of record keeping, and my own lapse in memory resulted in an inadvertent act of plagiarism...
...The national game survived the business excesses then, and it will again...
...I apologize for unintentionally plagiarizing a work by Don Marquis...
...2) changed NATO’s mission arbitrarily from one of defense to one of intervention...
...Newport Beach, CA As an admirer of the old New Leader, I strongly dissent from William Kristol and Robert Kagan’s editorial...
...In many ways Kristol and Kagan’s mind-set is of the post-World War II milieu that spawned the Clintons: They have great ideas, but cannot apply them...
...Any member of Congress who tries to lead will learn the same lesson that Newt Gingrich was taught...
...You don’t have to be an expert in diplomacy to see what a dangerous game we are playing...
...Robert J. Lurtsema Boston, MA Jonathan V. Last’s very interesting piece about Robert J. Lurtsema might have left a couple of incorrect impressions...
...When I was compiling Pocketful of Verse in 1991, I dug through material dating back some 40-50 years, much of which was only vaguely familiar...
...Do Kristol and Kagan still believe that “the air campaign may be more successful than panicky critics are forecasting...
...We cannot cope with all human misery, but we can do much more than we did, short of war, to tame men like Milosevic...
...In reply, I offer three words: Green Bay Packers...
...Three cheers for the Republicans who said “no” to Clinton’s war on Serbia...
...Yet in the end, I am grateful to William Porth for bringing this to light so that I may set the record straight...
...Nonsense...
...We can use embargoes, expulsion from world organizations, and widely backed moral suasion to influence evildoers...
...and the only cure to the Kosovo tragedy is to excise Milosevic (“Win It,” April 19...
...All that the NATO strikes have done, to date, is unite the Serbs against NATO, and specifically the United States...
...Unfortunately for us, and tragically for those in Kosovo, leadership in large part depends upon trust...
...We do not, and should not, seek to rule the world through our power...
...But I differ from Slezak’s assertion that big business made baseball’s golden age possible...
...I wasn’t surprised that Slezak disagreed with the thesis of the book—that the logic of capitalism wreaked havoc on the legendary team and turned Baltimore into a branch town...
...Golly, isn’t that a kissing cousin of socialism...
...Do we really want to fuel the flames of Russian nationalism across all parties—as we have already done so blithely by extending NATO to Russia’s borders...
...5) ignored the fact that Milosevic was engaged in a civil struggle against the Kosovo Liberation Army—an organization of terrorists seeking to wrest Kosovo from Serbia...
...Federal interference in K-12 education is alive and well—and should be banished from the schoolhouse...
...Once aware of the allegations, I sought out the poem in question and was anguished at what I discovered...
...That is credible...
...That is the very reason that his request to lead America into this poorly planned quagmire in Kosovo should have been denied by Congress...
...James T. Johnson Jr...
...It’s true: Excellence in baseball can coexist with the ugliness of its business side...
...I am filled with a sense of deep chagrin...
Vol. 4 • May 1999 • No. 31
