Act in Bosnia

Your editorial, High time to act on Bosnia was world class standard and gave a comprehensive, reasoned plea for sanity at the eleventh hour.

However, I fervently believe your 'first fix' proposal that they provide air cover in support of the Bosnian forces is not the answer. Your paper quoted the Bosnian Serb warmonger Karadzic as saying "We shall be forced in self-defense to shoot down the helicopters and aircraft which protect...."

Isn't this a clear statement of threat, intimidation, war?...And haven't we been here so many times before (Hitler, Saddam Hussein...). The end game needs NATO ground forces and NATO commanders, unfettered by American input, and with a clear mandate to fight the war and stop the genocide.

Then, and only then, the politicians in Western Europe can take over from a position of strength and control. I am not an armchair warmonger (I fought in the Falklands war and my son in the Gulf War and now in Bosnia) and I accept my 'all or nothing' simplistic plea has its drawbacks, but where else do we go?

In this scenario offense will cause less casualties than defense. Instead of the West carping about the threat of Islam, I beg you, act now and prove to our long time Moslem friends (nations) that we believe in, and will fight to protect, the sovereignty of all member nations, whatever their creed, and not only when strategic (oil) interests are threatened.

Vive le Chirac and, to his allies--"Forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do."

BILL GUERIN

Jakarta