I ran into Bert at Still Life, a cafe in the Fremont neighborhood, today. I asked him the question that's been nagging me since the bombing started in Yugoslavia five weeks ago. "Are we still bombing Iraq?" He nodded his head vigorously, dispelling any wishful thinking I had that our bombing of Baghdad ended when we turned our attention to Kosovo, and leaving me perplexed about why the Defense Department wasn't blasting this news to the people of the United States. Wouldn't such news be all the proof the department needed to justify their claim to the American public about the need to fight wars in two arenas simultaneously? Are they trying to keep us from getting a collective stomachache that the knowledge of so many bombs going off would cause? Are they afraid it might take away our appetite for the destruction we are causing in Yugoslavia, and that we'd call for the check and leave the restaurant?

And why am I getting my news about Iraq from Bert? I thought we lived in a country where free speech was practiced. If that concept has any meaning, shouldn't I at least be hearing about what countries the land of the free and home of the brave is currently bombing? Or does that just mean Philip Morris should be able to enjoy unrestricted advertising of its lifestyle line of cigarette products? Why am I not seeing news about the U.S.'s continued bombing of another country in the A section, where such news belongs?

I am not a casual reader, but a thorough one. Along with reading daily about the situation in Kosovo and Yugoslavia, I have read about Guatemala's governmental housecleaning, Pinochet's extradition to Spain, the North Korean Famine, the foreseeable stall in the Palestinian statehood talks, even an article on the banana war in St. Lucia in the Caribbean, but nothing on Iraq.

And who is Bert? Bert is a renegade citizen who makes illegal forays into Iraq to deliver medical supplies and other humanitarian aid to the people there.

Two weeks ago he returned from his most recent trip, and yes, our bombing continues unabated, he assures me.

Some of the news coverage I heard on the first day of the NATO air campaign in Yugoslavia--which, by the way, Americans now seem to think is not so much the name of a country, but a command: "you go slaughter!"--was a military spokesman who talked of "enjoying success." I couldn't believe his choice of words, that we were supposed to enjoy blowing up other people's countries. Although, of course, we weren't blowing up just anyone's country, we were blowing up an aggressor's means to subjugate an innocent ethnic minority. Only later did we goof and blow up some of those self-same innocent ethnic minorities. We seem to have hastened the aggressor's goal of driving out the ethnic minority entirely from their villages and towns. Now, instead of being preyed upon by a Serbian-dominated government that discriminated against them, they're being preyed upon by the officials (badge-wearing) and non-officials (non badge-wearing) of their host countries in the refugee camps where they've been corralled. The young and pretty among them are being scooped up by gold-chain-wearing, leather-clad pimps to service customers in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Amsterdam. The young and tough are being scooped up to begin war-training exercises with the KLA, who will eventually liberate the Serbian-held lands and restore them to the Kosovars. This story I read, not in an American paper, but in the German Die Zeit.

Why am I pointing out that the war in Iraq is continuing while we carry out the operation in Yugoslavia? Because we can't forget the war that is happening in Iraq. If we forget, who will cry out to our leaders: "Enough is enough! Stop the killing! Stop the bombing and the sanctions that are leading to the deaths of hundreds of children each day, and who knows how many other Iraqis each month!"

It is easy for President Clinton to tell us that violence is not the answer in response to the killings of students and a teacher at Columbine High School last week. It is more difficult for him to lead by example and say, "No, NATO's military intervention is not having the effects we had hoped." In fact, in many ways, it is having a reverse effect. It is not toppling Milosevic's government, it is not leading to a secure Kosovo. Rather, it is alienating the people of Yugoslavia against the United States and bolstering support for Milosevic among the Yugoslavs. It is causing great hardship and misery for the peoples of Yugoslavia, and it has completely destabilized Kosovo.

The U.S.'s air war in Iraq has had similar effects: it has alienated the Iraqi people against the U.S., strengthened support among the Iraqi people and other Middle Eastern peoples for Mr. Hussein, and caused great hardship and misery.

One explanation of the Columbine killings is that the boys who killed felt isolated. It is easy to imagine that they felt no sympathy for their intended victims. Turning people into alien "others" allows us to abuse them.

It's not people we are harming--or so the reasoning goes--but a menace, a target, a disruptive element. This kind of thinking is wrong. It was wrong for the boys who blasted their fellow students full of holes as a way to "get revenge" or "set an example" to their abusers, and it is wrong for the U.S., which is blasting our brothers and sisters in Yugoslavia and Iraq. If we want to teach our children that diplomacy--talking it out--is the answer, we must practice it ourselves.

Currently the European Union, Germany, Russia, and the United Nations have been undergoing extensive negotiations with the government of Serbia to end the massacres in Kosovo and the bombing of Yugoslavia. There's been almost no mention of these extensive efforts in the U.S. press. The key to a new European-brokered peace plan is the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops in Yugoslavia, especially the use of troops from Russia and other countries not currently involved in the NATO bombing campaign. Those who followed the Rambouillet talks will recall that the U.S. negotiators insisted on the deployment of NATO troops in Yugoslavia (i.e., troops primarily under the control of the U.S., Britain, and France); this was the only aspect of the agreement that Milosevic would not accept. Since the onset of the bombing campaign, he has signaled more than once that he would accept U.N. troops instead, yet the U.S. has remained firm in refusing to resume talks. Once again--as in the Gulf War--the U.S. motivation is simply to annihilate and humiliate ... and not negotiate.