The disintegration of Yugoslavia is not a regional conflict. There are not only centuries but entire continents supporting and reinforcing the suspicions, hatreds, intolerance and desires for ethnic purity that have manifested there.

If a wave in the middle of the ocean suddenly leaps 5 meters, it was not just the action of that cubic meter of water, but an expression from all the waves from all the winds and from all the shores of the world.

In this same way every time the US media demonizes Moslems, a nation of TV watchers send waves, some of which found their ways to Kosovo. (This struggle pitted Orthodox Christians and Moslems against one another.)

When Reagan called the Soviet Union an Evil Empire more waves were sent out. Some of these arrived in Croatia. (This struggle pitted Catholic Christians and Orthodox Christians against one another. The Soviet Union is also Orthodox.)

We are all human. We all have passions and emotions. We are all susceptible to the xenophobic hate mongering peddled by demagogues like Reagan or Ayatollah Khomeni.

If every time we wondered "how could that person do that" we thought instead "there by the grace of God go I", the world would be a different place.

We are Kosovo.