Saturday, October 17, 1998

President faces moral dilemma on Kosovo

By Lauren R. Stanley

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

There are times when I am glad I am not president of the United States.

And it has nothing to do with Kenneth Starr.

This time, it has to do with a tiny republic in a faraway land, the name of which most of us don't even know how to pronounce:

Kosovo.

It is a land one-third of the way around the world from the United States, populated for the most part by ethnic Albanians but ruled, viciously, by Serbs from Yugoslavia.

Kosovo is part of what remains of Yugoslavia.

And because of that accident of geography, the people of Kosovo -- the Albanian people, at least -- are being attacked and driven from their homes and in some cases, murdered.

All because they are of the wrong ethnicity.

I'm glad I'm not president of the United States because as president, it would be exceedingly difficult to decide what to do about Kosovo.

As it was about Rwanda.

And Yugoslavia before that.

And Cambodia before that.

And ... and ... and ...

In each case, of which Kosovo is but the latest, the grim decision facing the leaders of the "free world," and our president in particular, is particularly gruesome.

Do we kill?

Or do we allowed others to be killed?

Do we attack a country in order to save it?

Or do we sit by, and allow the country to be lost?

This isn't a case study from the Cold War, where superpowers played with the lives of people in a giant chess game. We aren't frightened that another superpower might launch nuclear missiles to stop us from "interfering" in "their"country, because there are no other superpowers anymore.

This is a real live story about people who are being forced out of their homes and brutalized and slaughtered in the name of "ethnic cleansing."

This is a story where death is the only answer, no matter what we decide to do.

Again, the question is basic: Do we kill, or do we allow others to be killed?

It is a dilemma of the first order, involving the lives of people we never will meet, with whom we never will break bread, with whom we never will have close personal relationships. And here we sit, one-third of the world away from them, deciding, basically, who will live and who will die.

We have to decide whether we will stand by and watch Slobodan Milosevic and his henchmen systematically butcher people in order to "cleanse" a countryside, or whether we will step in and stop this obvious evil.

Now, granted, Milosevic has agreed to comply with the latest NATO demands, to withdraws his troops, allow for humanitarian aid and begin discussions for Kosovo's autonomy. But as President Clinton said Monday, "Commitments are not compliance. Balkan graveyards are filled with President Milosevic's broken promises."

We will know within a few days whether Milosevic intends to comply, whether threats of NATO bombing are enough to force this compliance.

But if he doesn't -- and he has a long history of saying he would be good and then doing evil -- then we are faced with a brutal choice, one that makes every person involved in the decision think again about how to fulfill the Double Commandment, to love God and to love your neighbors.

We could argue until the cows come home about who is our neighbor, and about how most of us didn't even know Kosovo existed until a few months ago.

And we could argue until the cows go out and come back again about whether the United States has any right to get involved in other countries' messes.

But when we finished arguing those two questions -- which is what a lot of folks in Washington were arguing about in the past two weeks -- we still would be left with the dilemma of how to love God and our neighbors.

We still would have to decide: Do we kill, or do we let others be killed?

If we choose the latter, will we see another Rwanda, another Yugoslavia, another Cambodia, another Holocaust? And if indeed a slaughter happens -- and there's no reason to doubt that Milosevic and his ilk would do just that -- will we find ourselves apologizing in a few years for not having intervened?

If we choose the former, which means many innocent people will be killed -- including some of those people we are attempting to help -- will we be setting off the "quagmire" that so many people fear? Will we be "stuck" in Kosovo, as we seem to be "stuck" in Bosnia, and were "stuck" in Vietnam, no end in sight for our "peacekeeping" mission?

Kosovo is a dilemma worthy of Solomon. Unfortunately, we don't have Solomon around to make the decision, and we aren't arguing over the parentage of one small child. We are arguing over the fate of a whole country of people being brutalized because they are ethnic Albanians.

In the 1940s, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested, imprisoned and eventually executed for his role in an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister who was a leader of those attempting to stand up to Hitler, was very clear about his decision to break the Sixth Commandment, "Thou shalt not murder." This murder was the lesser of two evils and would be for the greater good, he said. Basically, he was saying, he would take his chances with God, and pay whatever price was set forth for committing murder, because so much good would come out of it.

That seems to be the same choice we have right now, in Kosovo. If we intervene, killing some people so that others might live, we will be doing the lesser evil in order to achieve the greater good.

It's a lousy choice, really, an ethical quagmire that will leave us with blood on our hands no matter what we decide.

IF I were president, I pray I would be strong enough to push and push and push until Milosevic backs down and withdraws his troops from Kosovo.

And if he didn't, I pray I would be strong enough to make the decision to launch attacks, to kill in order to let others live, and then to take my chances with God and pay the price for the sin.

But I don't know whether I could or would make that decision.

That's why I'm glad I not president of the United States these days.

As I said, it has nothing to do with Kenneth Starr.

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(The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Readers may write to her care of Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, 790 National Press Building, Washington, D.C., 20045.)

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(c) 1998, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.