Iowa State faculty and students from the former Yugoslavia have differing opinions about the deployment of U.S. troops into Bosnia.

Nenand Kostic, a professor of chemistry, who was born and raised in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and is now an American citizen, said he has reservations about the president’s decision to send in troops.

Kostic said although he believes the presence of some foreign, impartial troops is necessary, he does not think American troops are the best peace keepers. The “United States has virtually no experience in peacekeeping,” Kostic said. “It has usually been an invading country.”

Instead, Kostic said a better solution would be to send in troops from “nations who are more impartial.”

Ivan Malcic, a journalism student from Serbia, on the other hand, said the deployment of U.S. troops is “really great.”

Malcic said it is “hard for him to come from a country that was once united” and is now split apart by fighting.

Malcic did not agree with sending in U.N. troops last year, but, he said, “four or five years is enough killing and torturing of people.”

Either way, Kostic said, it is “naive and foolhardy” to think there is a quick and easy solution to decades of fighting in the Bosnia area.

“It will be decades before peace is established there,” he said.

Kostic also said it is risky for the United States to deploy troops, because the America has “clearly taken sides in the war,” and the Bosnian Serbs will see the deployment of troops as a provocation by the Americans.

Instead of keeping the peace, the troops will find themselves “in full-fledged war.”

“I will be amazed if that doesn’t happen,” Kostic said. “There is a high probability we will be drawn into a war. I don’t just mean occasional causalities; I mean involvement in real fighting.”

Kostic said President Clinton has made “many, many mistakes along the way,” in his Yugoslavia policies. “Politicians do not have an understanding of the historical or ethnic causes of the conflict. They prove that every day in their statements,” he said.