Those were the good old days when we parents fretted over how we were going to explain President Clinton’s sex scandal to our children. Explaining Monica Lewinsky was a breeze compared to explaining Kosovo to an inquiring 9-year-old.
“Dad, are we at war?”
“Well, yes, son, sort of. Some call it a war. Some call it a `police action.’ Some call it an `operation.’ Whatever. We’re dropping bombs.”
“Who are we bombing?”
“Well, it’s complicated.”
“Tell me!”
(Am I raising a future Geraldo Rivera or what?)
“We’re bombing the Serbs.”
“Why don’t we like the Serbs?”
“We like the Serbs. We like the Serbian people. It’s their leadership we don’t like.”
“Who is their leadership?”
“Can you say `Slobodan Milosevic’? He’s the president of Yugoslavia.”
“Why are we bombing what’s his name? Milosevic?”
“Because he has been doing very bad, very sad things to Albanian people who live in the part of his country that is called Kosovo. His army has been beating them up, kicking them out of their homes and even killing some of them to drive them out of Kosovo and into Albania and other countries. He calls it `ethnic cleansing.’ “
“Are we winning?”
“Not really. We were hoping to bomb him into stopping his ethnic cleansing. Instead he sped it up.”
“Why is Milosevic doing that?”
“He’s not a nice man. He does evil things.”
“But what is his reason? People have reasons for doing things, even if it’s a bad reason.”
(Forget Geraldo. I’m raising another Johnnie Cochran.)
“Well, you’re right, son. Some of the Albanians have been causing political trouble for Milosevic. There’s a rebel group in Kosovo called the Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA for short.”
“Rebels? Like in `Star Wars’?”
“Well, yes, sort of. Only not nearly as nice. Still, that doesn’t excuse Milosevic for punishing all of the Albanian men, women and children for what some have done.”
“What has he done to America?”
“Nothing directly. But we Americans are a humanitarian people. We like to help others.”
“Everywhere?”
“No, just some places. We didn’t send soldiers to stop the killing between Hutus and Tutsis in Africa. We don’t send in soldiers to stop the killing of Kurds in Turkey, which is a NATO member. We pick and choose whom we help. That’s called `politics.’ “
“That’s sad.”
“I agree. You are an astute observer of foreign affairs.”
“Why don’t we help Africans and others too?”
“I often ask myself that question, son. Actually, we Americans are still trying to define what our role in the world is, what’s in our vital national interest, now that we don’t have the Cold War to tell us who the bad guys are. Defining our role is the president’s job but he’s been busy with other matters.”
“Is anybody helping us?”
“We are not bombing alone. We have NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with us.”
“Who’s that?”
“European countries who got together with the United States after World War II to fight the Soviet Union. But now the Soviet Union has collapsed and NATO is trying to figure out how to do work it was not designed to do.”
“So the Russians are our friends?”
“Well, sort of. They take our money and they bad mouth us for attacking the Serbs.”
“Are we trying to bomb Milosevic?”
“If we can find him. But you didn’t hear that from me. We have laws against assassinating foreign leaders. But, ya’know, accidents happen.”
“Why can’t we find him?”
“He’s hard to see from that high up in the air. He moves around a lot.”
“Are we going to move in closer?”
“Not if we can help it. Like I said, we’re still defining our role.”
“If we’re not bombing him, who are we bombing?”
“His military, except when we happen to miss.”
“Do innocent people get hurt then?”
“Accidents happen.”
“That’s sad.”
“Yes. War is sad. War is messy and sad.”
“Will it end soon?”
“I hope.”
“How?”
I’ve got an idea. Let’s talk about Monica Lewinsky.
