Letters to the Editor

Standing up for Serbians

Editor’s note: Columnist Helle Dale said that, during a recent dinner with Serbian officials, there was no mention made that the conversation was off the record. We stand by her assertion.

The article “Are you being Serbed?” (Op-Ed, Aug. 6) came as a multiple surprise to me. Not only did its author, Helle Dale, refer to some off-the-record remarks by the prime minister of Serbia and our minister of foreign affairs at a dinner, but she also chose to go a step further to misquote and completely distort them. By the first act, she abused the trust of her host and his guests. The distortion can be attributed either to profound lack of knowledge or to Mrs. Dale’s ill intentions. Neither of the two gives credit to the renowned Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies that she represents.

Because I was present at the Metropolitan Club dinner, I can confirm that the prime minister did speak of the unpopularity of NATO and the United States in public opinion polls, something not unnatural, given that the intervention occurred four years ago. However, this was in the context of explaining how a democratic government has a difficult task of persuading public opinion on the necessity of certain choices but is still more than willing to make them. This is called leadership.

The prime minister said that the government was strongly resolved to conclude the issue of the cooperation with The Hague tribunal, and by the end of the year either arrest Gen. Ratko Mladic or prove that he was not hiding on the territory of Serbia and Montenegro. He also stated that the latter could be verified through cooperation of security services. How this was translated in the “new line” of denial in Mrs. Dale’s article eludes my understanding.

That brings us to the third issue — the case against eight NATO countries. The charge in itself is a remnant of the Milosevic years. The democratic government, as the prime minister said, was willing to drop it. It was absurd to sue the members of the club you wanted to enter. But the same is true, he argued, for the countries suing Serbia and Montenegro, namely Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia that also one day will be together with Serbia in the Partnership for Peace. Incidentally, the United States is not being sued, another example of Mrs. Dale’s failure to get the facts straight.

Goran Svilanovic, the minister of foreign affairs, elaborated on the issue of security when he spoke about Europe. It was completely in line with the vision of “Europe whole and free.” He expressed satisfaction concerning the meetings held that day with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Incidentally, prominent individuals from both the State Department and the National Security Council were present at the dinner. I am certain that they would have reacted to any “accusations” relating to Mr. Powell and Miss Rice of the type quoted in the article. Mr. Svilanovic said that he had some differences of opinion in certain matters with Javier Solana and Chris Patten concerning various issues of EU enlargement, but to conclude that he proudly berated them and lectured them is a total distortion of what was said.

Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic explained that he believed in individual and not collective guilt. That is why Serbia, over the past two years, extradited Slobodan Milosevic, all members of his inner circle and many other war-crime inductees. Even at the peak of the NATO bombing, U.S. officials took pains to state over and over again that the war was against Mr. Milosevic’s regime and not against the people of Serbia.

By repeatedly making malicious remarks against Serbs in general, now that Serbia is represented by people who for 12 long years fought Mr. Milosevic — Mrs. Dale seems to imply otherwise. Then, she probably also believes that America went to war not against the regime of Saddam Hussein, but against the Iraqi people. For their inherent meanness, naturally. The analogies she makes show that social science is one of the weaker sides of someone who is a deputy director for international studies at a prestigious think tank. Substitute Serbian with the term Jewish, black or American in her piece, and see for yourself whether you find her remarks offensive and inherently racist.

We, who lived under authoritarian regimes, admired the West and above all the Anglo-Saxon tradition, for its ability to reach judgments after trying to objectively determine the facts. To distort the facts in order to fortify prejudiced judgments is not within that tradition. It belongs to other traditions that I thought were a thing of the past.

IVAN VUJACIC

Ambassador

Embassy of Serbia and Montenegro

Washington

Shortfalls of the EU Constitution

In “Comparing U.S., EU Constitutions” (Commentary, yesterday), William Niskanen misses the three most important points:

1. The EU Constitution concentrates power rather than disperses it.

2. It aims at equal results for citizens (rather than equal opportunity), thus requiring massive government interference in the lives of citizens — to be paid for by massive taxation.

3. Being secular and atheist, it blurs the distinction between “moral” and “civil” law because a cosmos without God has no identifiable source for morality. As a result, civil government replaces God to become the definer of morality. Everything civil government does is done, as it were, at gunpoint, so coercion defines morality — might makes right.

All three characteristics set the European Union up for yet one more round of totalitarianism.

The only way to maintain a free people is precisely the opposite, as with our U.S. Constitution:

1. Disperse power and limit civil government to the role of protector and referee.

2. Aim at equal opportunity, and let the God-informed free market and public good decide the results.

3. Put civil government where our Founding Fathers (see Declaration of Independence) put it, under the law of God where, alone, our freedoms really are inalienable.

EARLE FOX

Alexandria, Va.

Gunning for it

Given the current furor over reauthorization of former President Bill Clinton’s so-called assault weapon ban, a comment made in an article in The Washington Times bears elaboration (“U.N. building to lose submachine gun cache,” Page 1, Tuesday).

Regarding the United Nations’ importation and possession of MP5 machine guns (true assault weapons) for Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s bodyguards, The Times article says, “The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives … originally denied the United Nations permission to purchase the guns. … The United Nations, aided by senior officials in the Clinton administration, persuaded the ATF to grant permission.”

It appears from this that while Mr. Clinton was trying to deprive ordinary law-abiding Americans of their Second Amendment rights, his administration had no problem allowing global bureaucrats to carry machine guns around on the streets of New York City. If this is true, we are once again reminded of Mr. Clinton’s elitist arrogance.

I hope The Times follows this story up and publicizes more information about this curious situation in greater detail.

KIM WEISSMAN

Longmeadow, Mass.

Double standards for illegals

What strange insanity grips local governments to spend taxpayer money to run hiring centers that illegal aliens benefit from (“Taxpayers question shelters for migrant workers,” Page 1, yesterday)? It’s a lose-lose decision.

Most of the workers are being paid under the table, with no taxes taken out for the social services that immigrants use in higher percentages than homegrown Americans. It is financially self-defeating for government to pay for the promotion of untaxed business activity.

And where is the concern for American workers who are unemployed at the highest rates in nine years? Government should be attending to the needs of citizens, not to demands from foreigners for undeserved social services. The whole arrangement sends a terrible message that playing by the rules is for suckers.

The bottom line is that elected officials should not be encouraging a growing breakdown in the rule of law, where Americans must obey legal strictures and illegal aliens do not.

BRENDA WALKER

Berkeley, Calif.