Letter: U.S. leadership's priorities skewed

For many Americans, it is mind-numbing to see not only the U.S. Congress readily award billions to the Kosovo operation and quibble over less than a million for school safety, but also to realize that our role as world police is done selectively.

Remarkable, too, was hearing President Clinton publicly deplore wanton killing in Colorado and in the next instant order yet more bombing missions over Belgrade, where many nonmilitary people and social infrastructure will be destroyed. How many prospective kids inclined to violence made the connection?

If President Clinton truly believed that the United States and the American people have a moral obligation to stop ethnic cleansing, then following the failure of all avenues of skilled diplomacy -- including economic sanctions -- a serious, full-scale invasion by ground troops supported by comprehensive NATO (not 90 percent U.S.) air and armor would have been the only difficult, but necessary alternative -- rather than the present dubious policy of killing innocent civilians from 25,000 feet.

Yet when one considers that this issue is in Europe's back yard, and that there is little indication European armed forces -- or diplomats -- would have done anything without U.S. initiatives, one can only worry and wonder about the motives and the quality of current U.S. leadership at this time.

JOHN H. ESPERIAN

archive