The U.S. and the World
I am grateful to the Advocate for running my piece, "A Look Back at Kosovo: The legacy of so-called 'humanitarian intervention,'" June 7, 2007. Some additional points should be made. First, the U.S. and Germany had been covertly backing the Albanian nationalist Kosovo Liberation Army well before the Rambouillet Accords and the bombing of Yugoslavia. (See Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty, "CIA Aided Kosovo Guerilla Army", Sunday Times, March 12, 2000.) A British parliamentary inquiry revealed that the KLA was responsible for the majority of cease fire violations and killings prior to the NATO bombing. Documents from the German high courts and foreign office in early 1999 also stated that human rights violations in Kosovo were connected with the conflict between government forces and the KLA, not a policy of persecution.
Second, I believe one of the most important goals of NATO's intervention was a change in NATO itself. The Kosovo war marked NATO's conversion from a (theoretically) defensive alliance to an offensive alliance able to intervene around the world. Since NATO troops entered Kosovo in June 1999, the Kosovo Liberation Army has ethnically cleansed Kosovo of most of its Serbs, Roma (gypsy) and other minorities. Indeed, despite the fact that Kosovo has become a hotbed of organized crime, chaos and violence, the NATO powers are more intent than ever on promoting its "independence." Camp Bondsteel and Western businesses will still remain.
Dimitri Oram
Northampton
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One definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. All through human history we have tried war, and now we are on the precipice of annihilation. Let's try peace; maybe it won't work but we know war does not. Which brings us to Iraq, a war based on lies and deception, not to protect us, not to depose a dictator, or whatever the rationale of the moment is, but to fatten the pigs who feed at the trough of human misery. We are outraged by the senseless carnage in Virginia, yet we accept the daily carnages in Iraq that are nothing less than premeditated murder.
Jaffrey Harp
Easthampton
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Clarification: In last week's column about Smart Growth ("Selectively Smart," June 21, 2007), Mark Roessler criticized the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission for, among other things, praising the Ice Pond development in Northampton for yet unrealized plans to build "pedestrian and bicycle path connections to downtown." The phrase in quotes comes from the PVCP, rationalizing its award for what remains, at best, an unfulfilled commitment: a sidewalk has been installed, but not a bicycle path.
