Vancouver Province
for May 7, 1999

An open letter to President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair – and, I suppose, if I’m writing the organ grinders I might just as well send a copy to the monkey - Prime Minister Chretien.

Now gentlemen, recognizing that you are set in authority over us I shall watch my language and manners and simply ask this:- what the hell made you ever suppose you could bomb people into submission? And why oh why do you continue adverting to Munich in 1938, Neville Chamberlain, and all that stuff?

Is it possible that you don’t know that Munich was about carving up one sovereign state in favour of another? That it was this which distinguished it, at least in law, from Hitler invading the Rhineland in 1936 contrary to the Treaty of Versailles and made it different, though less so, from the forced Anschluss with Austria in 1938? The Rhineland belonged to Germany and Austria, judging by the joyous maidens strewing Der Fuehrer’s path with garlands, consented to the arrangement.

Can it possibly be that you don’t understand that the Gulf War eight years ago, was again about a tyrant taking someone else’s country? And that whatever you might wish to be the case, Kosovo is part of Yugoslavia. Perhaps it ought not to be. Maybe a referendum on self determination of peoples is appropriate, But at this moment, gentlemen -–and I repeat myself because, with respect you seem slow learners – Kosovo is legally a province of Yugoslavia.

Now everyone agrees that Silobodan Milosevic is a very bad actor – the only one in the area nastier is his wife. And he has been active in ethnic cleansing, following the example set by Croatia when they ethnic cleansed the bejabbers out of Serbians. The question is not whether something should be done but what.

The organization with the responsibility for "doing things" is the United Nations Security Council. I need not remind any of you gentlemen that because your nations are all members. Now I understand that you thought of going that route but that two permanent members, China and Russia wouldn’t go along with the use of force.

Is it your position that because you couldn’t get your way with the Security Council you were then entitled to find some other organization to do your bidding? That somehow this made it quite appropriate to convert NATO, formed as and hitherto a defensive organization, into an offensive outfit?

Did it not occur to you that China and Russia might be right? Each of them has had their hands full trying to force people to do their will – indeed Russia is especially experienced in that regard – and probably had some sage advice that you would have done well to heed? Do you not know that Yugoslavia held down 600,000 German soldiers during World War II and that the reason Stalin permitted the late President Tito to break out of the Iron Curtain in 1948 was not some passing liberal fancy, but the clear knowledge that the Red Army would be occupied forever in fighting Yugoslav partisans if he invaded?

Gentlemen, have any of you been to Yugoslavia? I don’t mean by First Class jet travel to Belgrade or perhaps a hop into Serajevo for some skiing – I mean have you driven around the place as I have? It is, as a wag well put it, Viet Nam with mountains. There can hardly be on the face of this planet a better place for guerillas to hold down a modern army and a modern air force. If NATO sends ground troops into the Balkans it will be Chechnyia, Viet Nam and Afghanistan all rolled up into one with Tibet and Mongolia thrown in. That may well be what Russia and China were trying to tell you.

I really hate risking turning this subtle bit of soft diplomacy of mine into a screed but are you heads of government telling us mere mortals (who must weigh your words, so carefully screened though spin doctors into the CNN mikes) that you didn’t realize that by bombing hell out of Serbia you would create a living Hell for the very people you set out to save – the poor Kosovars?

I have nothing to add, gentlemen, except that once more you prove, as if more proof were necessary, that Mair’s Axiom I is unassailable:- You make a very serious mistake assuming that people in charge know what the hell they’re doing.