Kosovo crisis drags on, but students choose not to notice, or care

Thirty years ago, when my father was finishing up his senior year at Princeton, President Nixon announced the United States would extend its war efforts in Southeast Asia into Cambodia. Leading a national movement, Princeton students responded by shutting down the University as a symbolic strike against the war.

While I disagree with the decisions those of my dad's classmates who joined the strike, their actions demonstrated a stark difference with our current political mind-set — they actually believed in substantive foreign policy issues. Maybe our apathy derives from the fact that the Wall Street jobs many Princeton students take after graduation are not as threatening as a military draft. Maybe it's because Hollywood has not made any movies like "Red Dawn" recently. One thing is certain — few of us seem to care about what is going on in foreign policy.

That apathy seemed to have vanished last spring, when Americans — wearing NATO camouflage — decided to wage war on Serbia to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian Kosovars. Princetonians held discussion forums and candlelight peace vigils to alert people to the gravity of the situation, and columnists debated in this newspaper. But then we forgot about it. Today, a year later, I suspect that very few of us know what actually happened.

The war against Serbia began in response to reports of ethnic cleansing, as Serbians were driving ethnic Albanians out of their homeland province Kosovo, resulting in thousands of deaths. Regardless of the fact that the Clinton administration has done nothing to intervene in the numerous other conflicts around the world that have resulted in far greater carnage, for whatever reason, Kosovo was regarded as a grave humanitarian crisis.

After 78 days of bombing and scores of dead Serbians, what was left in Yugoslavia? At best, NATO created an artificial peace — give or take a few riots and murders — that has temporarily prevented further slaughters caused by Serbian forces in Kosovo. Nevertheless, this crisis has proven that Serbians and ethnic Albanians will never peacefully coexist in a multicultural state based on democratic values. What we have really learned is that in ethnically violent regions that have existed as such for centuries, war is a zero-sum game.

While Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic has diminished in power, he still remains at the head of the Serbian government. Unfortunately, while the original "bad guys" are still in power, the "good guys" — aided by the strength and legitimacy of NATO support — are quickly becoming the greatest threat in the region.

The Kosovo Liberation Army — a terrorist group NATO supposedly forced to disarm — has changed its name but continues to impose mob rule and terrorize Serbs under the banner of the Kosovo Protection Corps. Again, the harsh reality: The crisis was a civil war. Granted, it was one that appeared brutal and horrible to the bystander watching on CNN, where nobody was morally right and both sides would only be satisfied with complete domination over the other. Realizing this, NATO no longer views the KLA as its ally, and instead upholds the legitimacy of Serbian authority.

The only thing that prevents Act Two of the civil war is the NATO peacekeepers. As the KLA becomes dissatisfied with the artificial peace, expect more mobs, snipers, guerilla warfare and, most regrettably, American and NATO casualties. How many American servicemen will have to die upholding this artificial peace before we begin to question our continued involvement in Kosovo?

I'm not asking for a strike. All I suggest is that we check our apathy with a little bit of due diligence. Next time, when the president tries to convince you that we have a moral obligation to wage war to stop a "humanitarian crisis," do some research. Find out what the KLA means. Maybe go through a 15-minute course in Balkan history. At least check the premises of the media's battle cry.

Credit our parents' generation for caring about these issues. It is time we learn from their example. Our government's policies have grave consequences: People have died and continue to die because of America's actions. These are issues we cannot afford to be apathetic about. Dan Lips is a politics major from Weston, Conn. He can be reached at danlips@princeton.edu.