Kosovo Occupation

So, the Russians are back to their old Cold War tricks in Kosovo, making a surprise push into the Pristina airport (June 13). How typical of them to stab America in the back yet again. They have absolutely no business whatsoever interfering in American and NATO affairs. American forces should remove Russian troops from Pristina by any means necessary.

It is too bad that Russia has seen fit to abandon the spirit of cooperation that took hold at the end of the Cold War and return to the politics of confrontation. I am deeply saddened by this, as America and Russia had a real chance to build a better world, and now that chance is being thrown away because Russia prefers to support a bloodthirsty dictator like Slobodan Milosevic, rather than continuing to build friendship with America.

JEFF S. LANE

Anaheim

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At the news of Foreign Secretary Igor Ivanov’s claim that Russian troops entered Kosovo ahead of NATO’s troops “by mistake,” I could hear, in the background, the sound of 1 billion Chinese laughing. Maybe it was a question of using very, very old maps.

NIKOLAI PULCHRITUDOFF

La Verne

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NATO has apparently won an incredible victory. In so doing, we may have entered a whole new era of warfare, possibly rivaling in importance the transition from trench warfare to blitzkrieg.

We have defeated a fairly well-equipped and determined army of legendary ferocity without the loss in combat of a single NATO soldier. In some sense this is a late 20th century revival of siege warfare in which an army outside the walls or borders can wreak devastation without any retaliation.

The implications of this evident triumph could and probably should rewrite military strategy. If a land mass of the size of Yugoslavia can be bombarded to defeat from without, what must be going through the minds of defense strategists in Israel or Iran or even England and Japan? One can only pray that nuclear reprisal is not among the options.

ARTHUR D. SILK

Garden Grove

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The president’s speech from Whiteman AFB, in which he heaped praises on the B-2 as being such a remarkably amazing aircraft that performed incredibly during the Kosovo conflict, reminded me once again that this administration is pure photo-op (June 12).

Being part of the group of people who brought this aircraft into being, I cannot forget that this is the same man who has always derided the program as waste. Who never supported it and effectively canceled it. Who, although he made many visits to California aerospace companies, never came to thank us for building an aircraft that has advanced technology far into the next century. No, the only time he has ever had a good word for this aircraft is when he had to use it. Gee, Bill, I guess it works after all.

DAVID MANOS

Lancaster

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When you write that “the alliance [NATO] deserves to be faulted for getting off to a slow start,” in your June 11 editorial, how about one war too slow? Had our leadership acted decisively when ethnic cleansing began in Bosnia, there may never have been the devastating evacuation of Kosovo.

JAMES HARDIE

Rancho Palos Verdes