Crisis In The Balkans

Sir, - RTE radio news recently reported Mr Bill Clinton's appeal to Hollywood for an end to gratuitous violence in its productions…

Sir, - RTE radio news recently reported Mr Bill Clinton's appeal to Hollywood for an end to gratuitous violence in its productions. Some young Americans, Bill fears, are in danger of becoming so brutalised by the violence which they see in movies and on television, that they could endanger the lives and well-being of other US citizens.

In the very next news item that morning, the same President Clinton promised (not threatened - promised) to increase the devastating NATO air-bombing of Yugoslavia, in spite of the ever-mounting deaths and maimings of innocent civilians which inevitably result from this bombing campaign.

Is there a subtlety in Mr Clinton's logic that I am failing to grasp? Or is it a case that he simply abhors random violence except where it furthers the existing interests of the United States? - Yours, etc., Charles Hayes,

Via Morosini, Varese, Italy.