Letter: Miscalculations only worsening crisis in the Balkans

The loudest voices now calling for ground troops in Serbia are the same voices of 30 years ago that were screaming, "Hell no, we won't go." Joining this chorus are some that served valiantly in that "bungled war" and now would like to rid themselves of the bad taste left by its outcome.

None of these voices could be heard when hundreds of thousands of Serbs were "ethnically cleansed" from Bosnia and Croatia in 1995 with the full knowledge of the Clinton administration and NATO.

Failing to recognize, or simply ignoring, the historic value of Kosovo to the Serb people was a monumental blunder. Attempting to force-feed a flawed agreement to the Serbs has resulted in a humanitarian disaster.

Illegal military intervention by NATO (into a sovereign nation) has allowed Milosevic to accomplish in 10 days what he could not do over the past 10 years. Miscalculations of this magnitude make heroes out of "tin-pot dictators."

To all those strident voices we are now listening to, I would like to add my "whisper." It is not worth sacrificing a single American soldier's life to protect the "credibility" of President Clinton or NATO. If common sense and reason do not soon prevail, this country will be in a nightmare that won't go away when we wake up.

Lou Suggs

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