THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 27, 1995 TAG: 9512270251
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
No parent in the United States wants to send his or her children into the insane violence that pervades Bosnia today. Yet our servicemen and servicewomen, while preferring to be home for the holidays, are ready to perform the duties for which they are trained.
The puerile posturing of some of the members of our Congress, who politicize at every opportunity, does nothing to encourage and support our armed forces in their efforts to enforce a peace in the war-stricken country. Their ambivalence indicates a lack of understanding of our leadership position in the world today. Their statements that we have no economic stake in this part of the world is a poor reason for not helping to separate the ethnic groups that formerly lived together. Does the country have to be endowed with oil reserves for us to have an interest in peace?
Some say it is Europe's problem and Europeans should settle the fratricide. England, France, Holland and others have tried to bring peace and could not. They have asked for our help. Can we do less than they did when President Bush asked our European allies to join his coalition to settle the Gulf War?
We are not being asked to take sides and fight a war. We have been asked to get the warring groups to sit down and talk about peace. No one could have prevailed upon them to sit down at a table as we did in Dayton and get them to agree to work toward a peace settlement.
Have we forgotten that 50 years ago we agreed that ``never again'' would the world sit back and permit the atrocities that have occurred in Bosnia? Can we change the quality of compassion and humanitarianism for which the whole world admires us, and refuse to help bring peace to this country? The expressions and comments of the survivors indicates the relief that they feel by our presence. ``Blessed are the peacemakers,'' and that is our mission.
MILTON H. KAPLAN
Norfolk, Dec. 20, 1995 by CNB