No one is entirely good – nor is anyone entirely evil.

Wednesday, March 31, 1999

No one is entirely good – nor is anyone entirely evil. Most of are a little of both with a lot of gray in between, whether we want to admit it or not.

The media has never been very good at communicating that. Watch the news about the conflict in Kosovo, and you will get pictures of pathetic ethnic Albanian women and young children, and shots of dead bodies being poked at by soldier-men.

You’ll also get overhead shots of NATO bombing successes, shots that show a far away cloud of smoke, but too far away to see what the bombs actually hit, and whether any bodies are a part of the debris.

There’s no doubt that something horrendous is going on over there, but we seem only to be exacerbating the situation with our bombing.

However, keep in mind that slaughter of civilians rarely begins without provocation.

It may escalate into something one would consider inhumane and insane – remember the American troops in My Lai, the Lebanese Christians in two Palestinian camps – but war is sick. Adding outside aggression to an already volatile situation would appear to simply add fuel to the fire.

At this rate, there won’t be any ethnic Albanians or Serbians left after a few more days, then we can just wrap the devastated land up in a big red, white and blue ribbon and hand it over to Albania. Hurrah for NATO …

If Minnesota were more than half Canadian refugees would we hand over part of the state so they could govern themselves independently, particularly if one of their stated goals was joining Canada?

Supposing Germany, Spain and Russia set themselves up as negotiators in our troubled dispute, but came to the negotiating table with a proposal that made Gov. Jesse Ventura look like a wuss and put the Canadian Liberation Front, (their militia), one step closer to achieving the goal of a bigger Canada – think you would want Ventura to sign the dotted line to keep the peace.

Or would you want to kick some Canadian butt?

Richard Burns, a professor at Cambridge University in England, lived in the former Yugoslavia for several years. Before NATO started bombing he spoke out against it, and in favor of a continued effort at a diplomatic solution that was agreeable to both sides and not slanted toward one or the other.

He writes: "The Kosovo conflict is a complex inter-ethnic, inter-tribal civil war with a long background and build-up in a regions where a tradition of revenge, vendettas and blood-killings has been endemic at village level, and less than a century ago was the only law.

The NATO leaders have not read, experienced or understood that history and have no interest whatsoever in doing so. The Balkan conflict – like all others – is being fought by fallible and ignorant human beings, each side with its own deeply entrenched set of ideologies and value systems, and its belief that its own cause is just. It is obvious to all except the imperialistic masters and mistresses of NATO that such a conflict cannot possibly be ‘solved’ by the simplistic exterior imposition of the moral values of western liberal ideology (in this case literally ‘from above’, as in bombs dropped from the skies). A degree of patience, modesty and understanding are called for, …"

It’s a tough call, but is it ours to make, particularly when we don’t know much of the history, don’t get well-balanced reporting, don’t live there, and aren’t perfect ourselves?

 

Jana Peterson’s column appears Wednesdays