ROCKY MOUNTAIN VIEWS

	April 14, 1999
	Chief Correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth leads a discussion with a diverse group of voters in Denver on their views of the NATO action against Yugoslavia and the plight of Kosovo.

JIM LEHRER: Now, some American public reaction to the situation in Kosovo. It comes from a group of citizens in Denver that we have gone to from time to time in the past. Elizabeth Farnsworth spoke to them again last night. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It's good to see you all again. Thanks for being with us. Susana Cordova, is this air campaign a legitimate function of US power? SUSANA CORDOVA, Democrat: It certainly seems to me like if we don't do something, if the world doesn't do something to stop Slobodan Milosevic, I don't know when he would stop. I mean, I don't see that there would be an end in sight if we don't, as a world, take a stand that this is not acceptable, that genocide is not acceptable. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Warren Tellgren, as a vet, do you think this is what US forces should be doing? WARREN TELLGREN, Republican: I don't believe that the military forces should be the peace keepers of the world. I believe that we're more -- we didn't belong in there in the first place, but now that we are in there, that we should support our troops 100%. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why didn't we belong in there in the first place? Tell me what your worry is. WARREN TELLGREN: My worry was, and is, that we're in there; how are we going to get out? And the only thing that I see now that can happen is to put ground troops in there, and that means we're going to have a lot of casualties, and the next thing you'll know we'll have POW's and MIA's, and we'll have another Vietnam. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bob Journayvaz, do you think that this is what US forces should be doing? Is it a legitimate function of US forces? BOB JOURNAYVAZ, Republican: That's a really tough question, because once we go down this path of trying to solve horrendous world leaders like Milosevic, how do we answer to the other terrible leaders throughout the world? Are we going to do this in every case? And -- and I agree with you: The world needs to do something. And so we're really in a tough position here. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mm-hmm. Dee Cisneros? DEE CISNEROS, Democrat: I would have preferred a more diplomatic way of solving this, and once we're in and the decision's already made, and we have to have faith in our leaders and go along with whatever they say, once they decided, made that decision, I don't think we should -- we should be sitting back here being generals and trying to tell them how to handle it. ERIC DURAN, Democrat: I think everybody agrees that when it's in America's best interest and when we have a compelling interest, we need to be involved abroad in foreign affairs, and then the second thing is when there's some type of humanitarian issue or ethical issue. In this case there is -- the slaughter of innocent people. Now, can we be involved and be the patrol of the world? Absolutely not. But in certain cases, I think we need to step forward as a country, as a world leader, and say this is unacceptable. And I think that's the ethical. -- the ethical thing or the ethical way of looking at it. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Hmm. Dennis Coughlin, the ethical way? In fact, it reminds me of something the President said. He said yesterday, speaking at an Air Force base, "This is America at its best." Is it? DENNIS COUGHLIN, Republican: Well, I don't know if war is ever when America is at its best. War is the most difficult, important decision a President is going to make, and he'd better be right. I, like the rest of the group here, support what he is doing. I think ethnic cleansing is absolutely morally repugnant, and we have to take a stand, but he has to pick his shot -- his spot where he's going to have a true effect. If he makes a mistake here, I think it's one of the most severe mistakes any President can make. The converse of that is true. If he does set a moral tone, if he does stop this kind of behavior, if he does set a standard for the rest of the world to understand that they can't conduct themselves in this manner or the United States will step in, then more power to him, then he's done a tremendous thing. If he's wrong, I'd take an awful severe look at his administration and everybody that was involved in this. (All speaking at once) He'd better be right. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Brent? (All speaking at once) DEE CISNEROS: But it's not just his administration; it's the NATO, and we're a part of that group. BRENT NEISER, Republican I think that's where the problem lies. We have the potential of a Vietnam to the power of 19, and what I mean by that is, remember the pictures of LBJ sitting around picking out bomb sites and really taking the military tactics into his own hands? General Clark has to consult with 19 nations. We're one of them, and we're telegraphing to Milosevic what our strategy is-- the breadth, the depth of it, the timing. You have Madeleine Albright giving a press conference, and she sounds like she's the secretary of defense, or the supreme allied commander, but she's not. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Although a lot of material's being withheld from reporters. BRENT NEISER: Well, I think a lot more should be withheld. We should be throwing Milosevic off balance. We're violating some very sound doctrinal principles of executing warfare: Surprise, security, maneuverability. DENNIS COUGHLIN: This is not just the war as it was in years gone by. Certainly we are not going to put information out that is going to put our troops in danger-- I agree with that-- but I think that we are continuing trying to put the pressure on this guy and saying, "If you don't come to the bargaining table, if you don't negotiate, if you don't stop this, this is what's going to happen." And I think to just walk in there without any consultation with him, without telling him these are the next steps, you are making the diplomatic effort much, much more difficult. So I don't disagree with the way Clinton is-- and I'm not a Clinton fan. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What about that, Chris? What about - CHRIS GOODWIN, Independent: No, I think this has been a mistake from the beginning, and I think we've really forgotten a lot of the lessons from Vietnam. It's amazing how quickly we've forgotten that. First of all, we're intervening in somebody else's civil war. I think that's always going to be a disaster. And of course, there's been atrocities committed by the Serbs, but in the past, there's been atrocities committed by the Croats against the Serbs. The KLA has assassinated civilians when they decided that was a tactic. This is not something -- this is not a proper role for NATO. In fact, I wonder if NATO should even exist anymore. I think we should give some serious thought to the United States getting out of NATO. There's no military solution to the Balkans; there never has been. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Linda Houston, you have a son at the Air Force Academy. LINDA HOUSTON, Republican: Right. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You're looking at a situation where you could have a child going to war in the Balkans. How do you -- how does that strike you? LINDA HOUSTON: Well, I think, regardless of who's in the military, I think we always have to be concerned about them, but I don't believe his life or anyone who's there's life is any more important than any of the Albanians, but I also agree with Dennis that I think a President has to go into something like this with his eyes wide open, and I don't believe he did that. And I think it's absolutely presumptuous of him to think that he's going to do these little air strikes in these limited places and get him, Milosevic, to change his mind. I mean, how silly. I mean, this is a man who has been doing this for years. If he's not coming to the table and making adjustments to what he's going to do, then why did we ever think that just, you know, bombing a few places would make a difference? ERIC DURAN: I have a few points I want to make about this about this. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Yes. ERIC DURAN: I'm hearing all of these historical comparisons to Vietnam, to Nazis, to World War II. I haven't heard anyone make a comparison to the most recent war, which was the conflict that we had in Iraq, which was somewhat similar to this, where we had an out-of-control leader moving into a region and claiming it for his own. So I think the one thing that we can be certain of is that all of these historical analogies may not apply to this situation at all. If you use Iraq as an example, I think we bombed for three or four weeks before we even sent in ground troops. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, and the President did say today, Jim Sulton, that ground troops weren't off the table -- or were on the table, that it was something that was being considered. What do you think about ground troops? JAMES SULTON, Democrat: I think it's easy to Monday- morning quarterback this thing, and we'd probably be about as predictive as we are with football. We're looking at people making a lot of mistakes, diplomatically, strategically, and it may help to modify the questions and our thinking a little bit right here; rather than ask whether it's a legitimate use of force, I'm thinking whether or not the world community can come together and apprehend and punish war criminals, because in the process of saying yes to that, you do take some risks. I'm very impressed with your courage with regard to your son. I have a son a similar age, and I hope I can be as courageous. It's very difficult to ponder that notion. At the same time, I have to believe the world community is strong enough to come together as a community. We've failed so many times. Iraq is not the analogy; Rwanda is. Didn't do a darn thing. Sat there and watched a bona fide genocide. We going to do that again? Watched a genocide. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you believe that Americans are aware of what's at stake here and paying close attention? Are they -- one congressman said, "Wake up, America. Europe's at war, and the US is, too. SARA SMITH, Democrat: I don't think people see it as war yet. I think they see it as a conflict, whatever that means. And that's really -- but that's really how we do war now. That's the way war is fought in this era. And we -- Brent was talking earlier about having a -- you know, where is the international forces? How can you organize a war with 19 countries in it, with 19 different leaders? You have to. You have to, because that's the only way you can even legitimize going to war anymore, is if you have the international support. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How crucial have the pictures been, the pictures of refugees that we've all seen on television and in the newspapers? LINDA HOUSTON: I think they've been -- I think they've been very effective, and I think at least most of my friends are very involved in reading the paper and wanting to know what's happening. But I think they're also very confused. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Sam, how about -- how important have the pictures been in your case? SAM ARNOLD, Republican: Very important, and I think a lot of my friends have said that they would like to provide home, shelter for the refugees; that if there is some way in which we could take in a family or two families or ten families, we'd do it. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I'm interested -- often, not that I can ever predict what you all are going to say, but sometimes it breaks down fairly much along party lines. You're all mixed up here. I can't predict by whether you're a Republican or a Democrat how you're going to come down on this. BOB JOURNAYVAZ: Well, hopefully we don't come down on partisan issues. From a policy standpoint, we've got to begin to establish criteria for which nations we are going to help and which we aren't. And the policy makers on both sides of the aisle need to let us know which countries we're going to go support. Let's not forget that in the 1996 election, nobody wanted to talk about foreign policy. The images of the atrocities have been in the news if you go to the 25th page for the last ten years. But who's been paying attention? And so I guess, you know, the administration and the policy makers on both sides of the aisle, you know, need to focus around the world. JAMES SULTON: Well, I think the public needs to focus on them, because those leaders that you quite rightfully assign responsibility are not going to respond until people do consider the fact that they're not only citizens of this country, but members of the world community. And George Bush was maligned for talking about a new world order from both sides of the aisle, but the fact of the matter is, we cannot dictate what happens. We can, as you say, react to it. And I think that we are members of the world community. I think the world community has to respond to that, and we as a part of that community have a role to play. It may be that we're the only superpower, and therefore we end up stepping up more than other nations that don't have the capability. (All speaking at once) ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's all the time we have. Thank you all. I hate to stop it. Thank you very much.