Opinions are like bottoms; everybody has one. And opinions on Kosovo are everywhere you look, so humor me.

We’ve screwed up big time in Kosovo.

For starters, we just flushed any relations with Russia down the tubes. Yugoslavia is their number one ally, and we decided to bomb the hell out of it. Brilliant.

Due to my deadline, I can’t tell you what came out of the meeting, but Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov went to Yugoslavia Tuesday with his defense, intelligence and foreign policy chiefs seeking “an immediate halt” to NATO airstrikes (AP, Moscow, March 29).

After Yugoslavia, the group flies straight to Germany to discuss NATO with that American-loving group.

The fact that Russians have attacked the U.S. embassy as part of the biggest political protest since the fall of Communism, heralded the U.S. as the “real evil empire,” burned countless U.S. flags and even banned the sale of “Monica’s Story” leads me to believe they aren’t sending an Easter basket.

Unless, of course, it’s a basket filled with chocolate bombers and cyanide lollipops.

Speaking of countries that hate us, Iraq is on Yugoslavia’s side, too. Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic practically have a running chess game.

Both countries are under an arms embargo, and both pretty much hate our guts. So the fact that they trade weapons and even worse, secrets, should have us wetting our pants.

In fact, Yugoslav defense specialists met last month with Iraqi officials to discuss the weather, the Cubs, arms deals, U.S. fighter jets and combat tactics.

Not that the Yugoslavs were desperate for help. According to the Pentagon, Yugoslavia’s defense system is superior to Iraq’s. Plus, they’ve been tutored by the Russian’s (AP, Washington, March 29). Super.

To round out the list of people who are burning our flags and protesting our actions, we’ve got the Chinese (whom we just insulted last week concerning their own human rights practices), the Greeks, the Czechs, our own people, and the Australians.

Yep, we managed to tick off the Australians.

I’m not saying we should be scared to step on some international toes, but when it’s not warranted, that’s when we screw up.

You see, the real kick in the pants here is that we have absolutely no business bombing the Serbians.

What we are dealing with in Kosovo is a land battle that’s been going on since 1389. A month or two, even a year or two, of air strikes and possibly ground campaigns won’t make a dent in solving the problem.

The Serbians hold Kosovo very dear; it’s part of their national history, and they regard it as their holy land.

It was taken away from them for 500 years during which time Albanians immigrated to the area, settled and grew in numbers.

Before last week, 90 percent of the two million people who lived in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians who didn’t want to leave their homeland and wanted their autonomy back. Milosevic took it away in 1989.

Can we blame Serbia for wanting to hold on to a land that is so close to their hearts? Can we ask Albanians to leave their homes? Is it really any of our business?

It is our business when we are trying to end ethnic cleansing. However, why are we so quick to condemn the Serbs for the same actions the Kosovars took? Because they’re winning?

If you watch our grossly biased news coverage, you’re sucked into believing that Milosevic is the next Hitler and he’s creating the next Holocaust.

The Serbs are the bad guys and the Kosovo Liberation Army is the good guys, right?

Not even close. The KLA is a terrorist group that has wreaked havoc on the Serbs for years.

They are just as evil as Milosevic himself, they’re just underfunded.

What NBC and CNN aren’t going to tell you are merited and underinvestigated allegations that the KLA is directly associated with and probably partially funded by the smuggling of heroin into the U.S. Not exactly a group of Eagle Scouts.

Certainly not a group Clinton should be inviting to the White House, which is exactly what he did two weeks ago, nor should we consider training and arming the group which is exactly what NATO is discussing.

What no one is saying is why we chose Yugoslavia as “the one” out of 52 wars currently going on across the globe.

It is not to fight ethnic cleansing; unfortunately there are bloodier wars in Rwanda and elsewhere.

It is not to prevent the spread of war to other European countries because our actions are what has caused the spread.

So I guess that’s a question which will probably never be answered. Heaven forbid someone in Washington would admit they screwed up.

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Sarah Leonard is a senior in political science and journalism and mass communication from Lawler.