Like Shambles and others, war in the Balkans frightens me more than I care to admit. It is not that I don't care about Tibet, the Kurds or the Kuwaities, but the ability of the balkans to drag Europe into a regional conflict is too recent and too real.

Mick asked in another thread waht we could do and if there weas such a thing as a "just" war. I believe that there can be, and that perhaps WWII was. The problem with the Yugoslavian problem is that there is no obvious "villan state". There may be individual villans, but you can't remove them with cruise missiles and air strikes.

Seed, you asked what justification there is in American or International law for the action in Kosovo, I agree there is none, but I believe that this is irrelevant. What we are faced with is a moral dilemma. To use an analogy, if two neigbouring families are fighting and the children are being injured, most people would say that there is a moral obligation to stop the fight. To do that however, you have to get in the middle and risk being hurt yourself. If you stay outside and throw rocks, the only likely effect is that both families will turn on you.

So - we are morally obliged to stop indescriminate slaughter of civilians, but to do so we must be prepared to send our own young men to die, to accept that we ourselves will kill innocents, and that what ever action you choose, no-one will thank you.

You cannot bomb people into tolerance and you cannot take effective "Police action" if the politicians and public will only accept 'risk free' tactics. The concept of National sovereignty and the right of a government to do as it will within its own borders cannot be sustained if we are concerned with moral issues.

Tragically, it seems to me that the only way out that will actually protect those we are seeking to help, would be to do a deal with Milosovic that makes it worth his while. Hardly a moral solution, but maybe a pragmatic one.

Pete M