CKNW Editorial
for May 12, 1999

Do you remember Casey Stengel? Well after his great successes with the New York Yankees – I think I could have managed those teams – he took over the brand new New York Mets, in 1962 I think it was … they were called "them Amazin Mets" because they were arguably the worst team to ever take to a diamond. The story goes that Casey, after watching the usual fare of ground balls through the legs, dropped pop flies, two runners on the same base, missed signals and all, clapped his hand to his forehead and cried "can’t anyone here play this game?"

So might he have said if he’d viewed Nato in action in Yugoslavia.

The idea was, of course, to stop the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo by the Serbs. A "deal" was achieved in Rambouillet with the Kosovars – which was not surprising since it substantially advanced their cause and rejected by the Serbs because for them it had the opposite effect. What seems to be forgotten here is that Serbia regards Kosovo as part of the country of Yugoslavia as much as Canada regards Quebec as part of this country. And legally they’re as right as Canada is.

Now Milosevic is a bad bugger, no question about that. But at the time all this was going on a few months ago he was on his last legs, politically speaking. His wife, a very strong person and said to be the brains of the operation, was behind him but few others. There is plenty of evidence that this hardline communist, trying to return the country to communism, would have been forced from office.

Nor should anyone be in doubt about the safety and well being of Kosovars under Milosevic – there was plenty of reason for deep concerns.

But what has been the result of the Nato action, taken quite outside the approval of the United Nations Security Council?

Well, we’ve made a ruins of much of Serbia and destroyed most of her communications system. Just how this will ever be restored without mammoth capital injections by the United States is hard to see.

We have made things infinitely worse for the Kosovars, the people we were supposed to be helping. Macedonia and Albania, two of the poorest countries in the world, simply can’t handle any more refugees yet refugees keep arriving. Meanwhile in Kosovo the Serb Army destroys what’s left of Kosovars’ homes and businesses.

Now, because the CIA doesn’t have a proper road map of the city of Belgrade we bomb the Chinese embassy. If you ever needed demonstration of Mair’s axiom I, namely, "you make a serious mistake assuming that people in charged know what they’re doing", here it is in spades.

Now what, Mr Clinton? You’ve got a fine mess on your hands now. Just when it looked as if Russia and China would help you find a solution, you’ve made the Chinese mad as hell – and understandably.

I’ll tell you what now, Mr President. You’re going to have to stop the bombing that never should have started in the first place. That is the condition China places upon approving through the Security Council any peace arrangements you might make.

Canada is on the horns of a dilemma. It could have acted like other Nato members at the start and refused to put any armed forces in the field but the thought of being lectured to from on high by Prime Minister Blair and President Clinton was just too much … like a dog at supper time we just wagged our tail and did as we were told. If we stay in the bombing, we shatter our reputation as a peacekeeper … if we pull out, we look like cowards hitting their allies when they’re down. The truth is we can’t quit because Jean Chretien has invested too much political capital into the misadventure.

Probably, when all’s said and done, we’re doing the best we can by having Foreign Minister Axworthy working on the Russians. And we’ve been lucky with the Russians. A Russia of ten years ago would have been a very serious factor in all this. But we shouldn’t take too much pleasure from seeing her down if not out because things change in time. Russia has had her national pride wounded … Russians, long used to being seen as one of the world’s two super powers now see their country treated as if it were a petty duchy or a puny principality. We could pay dearly for this.

Perhaps the bombing of the Chinese embassy will be a blessing in disguise by forcing an agreement but somehow I think it’s too late to negotiate a peace in the area, which will last. It looks to me like a partition with UN forces there to enforce a line of demarcation like the 38^th parallel in Korea, that is to say interminably.

As Casey said, "can’t anyone here play this game?"