NATO Bombing of Chinese Embassy

Re “Time for Targeting Review,” editorial, May 10: In criticizing the bombing campaign against Serbia, The Times demonstrated ignorance of the nature of war. After more than 9,000 flights against almost 2,000 targets there have been 12 instances of errant bombing. That puts NATO bombing errors at .0013 or about 1/10th of 1%. Nevertheless, The Times describes the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy as “reckless” and this small error percentage “a problem” for NATO. You state that apologies are not sufficient and want a review of bombing procedures.

War is enormously destructive and this is the least destructive war ever waged. If the objectives of this conflict were not compelling enough to endure the collateral damage that comes as a natural result of war, then we should never have started bombing.

PETER S. BOWEN

Orange

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When are the Serbian people going to be held responsible for their elected government? Will the mothers ask their sons if they raped and murdered innocent women? Will wives question husbands about their role in the war? I and many people I talk to think that if we are going to do this fighting, we need to drive home to the Serbian people that they are responsible for their actions and the result, which is war. This is the only way to make them realize that their behavior is reprehensible and amoral.

This is not Iraq with a dictatorship forcing people to murder others different from them. The Serbian people are willing and culpable. Destroy their villages as they have destroyed their former countrymen and the war will come to a halt rather quickly. They are not innocent.

RENE RICHARDSON

Manhattan Beach

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NATO says that the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was a mistake. I think I will believe it if and when any of the NATO member embassies is also mistakenly bombed.

FRANK S.C. CHANG

Brentwood

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If the Chinese government and people really want to protest and vent their anger against NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, then they would suspend trade between the United States and China.

ARCH MILLER

Arcadia

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Too bad the Chinese people don’t get upset when their own military murders and pillages in places like Tibet.

CLIFTON E. BARNETT

Los Angeles

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The juxtaposition of the Littleton school carnage with the Belgrade bombing has me confused. Some of the most violent television programming seems to be the news. Stop the bombing. Control the guns. Negotiate. Before it’s too late. Now. Please.

KATHLEEN FJERMEDAL

Santa Monica

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One of the first casualties of Clinton’s war has been the budget surplus. What resources could have been directed to fixing Social Security, or if you were so inclined, a tax cut, are now raining down on Serbia in the form of bombs.

In a way, the president has followed his role model, John F. Kennedy, very closely but without half the style. The women, the economic prosperity and now the nasty little war. The arrogance of power shall be this country’s undoing. Bombs will only grow gardens of stone.

CHRIS KAYE

Palm Springs

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I am delighted by the release and homecoming of the three servicemen. However, unless we were not told the whole story, why did they deserve the Purple Heart? That medal is awarded to people in combat who risk their lives for their comrades and their country. Being captured and even beaten by captors don’t warrant our country’s highest honor.

BARBARA RONA

Culver City

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Call me a “bleeding heart” but I was saddened to hear the little boys as they worshiped their returning East L.A. hero. One said, “He went to fight for his country,” and another youngster said, “I’m going to fight for my country.”

And I thought of the dead in Clinton’s Somalia, Reagan’s Lebanon, Bush’s Persian Gulf and on and on. Has our country been better off because of their supreme sacrifices? Have we ended the tribal wars that have gone on for centuries?

PAUL H. WANGSNESS

Burbank

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Why is it that we can send for and house and feed the Kosovo refugees and we don’t have enough money to house and feed our own people who are on the streets? This just doesn’t make any sense to me. I feel sorry for those people who were given nowhere to live but we are constantly taking in others and forgetting our own. I am sorry, this just does not compute.

TONI JACOBSON

Monterey Park