The way to deal with a pen full of spitting, scratching wildcats is to get in there, grab them by the scruff of the neck and say:
“Here, here. You fellows must come to realize that conflict is reprehensible.”
Recent history tells us that intervention of the mighty United States war machine did nothing to resolve the civil war in Vietnam, other than to pockmark a beautiful country.
The all-powerful Soviet army with the latest in weaponry backed out in humiliation from Afghanistan.
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Now the United Nations is determined to convince three feuding factions in the former Yugoslavia that Balkan wars must cease after centuries of malevolence.
The UN arranged for a few thousand “peacekeeper” troops to hop into the pen of wildcats and remonstrate with them. The Bosnian Serbs weren’t long in discovering the blue bereted soldiers made good hostages.
Somehow we have to make it seem advantageous to the antagonists to cease spitting and scratching.
At present, the Serbs, the Bosnians and the Muslims are warring over what segments of the former Yugoslavia will be homelands for each.
In that mountainous country a fertile valley or an industry can make quite a difference to a new nation’s survival.
There doesn’t seem to be any quick solution. There is even doubt the leaders of the three national groups can call off their trigger-happy soldiers.
If the UN could slip tranquilizers into the messes of the three armies it might help.
Pouring in tens of thousands of international military personnel might make it confusing for the wildcats in deciding who to scratch. They seem prepared to take on anyone who gets in the way of their aspirations.
Reforming someone else’s morality always was a thankless task.
