All's well that ends well, or so they say.

And I hope with all my heart that the president's decision to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in a blitzkrieg-style bombing of Yugoslavia ends well.

I also hope that facts come out that will convince most of us that the deaths our bombing caused and the risks we took with our men and women in uniform were justified.

At this writing, the bombing is in the second day of what experts say will probably be weeks.

For weeks, the most powerful nation in the history of the world will be focusing thousands of tons of explosives on a nation the size of a postage stamp.

Why?

Without getting into too much detail, here's what I've been able to find out by watching TV and reading newspapers:

A province of Yugoslavia, Kosovo, declared itself an autonomous nation and seceded from Yugoslavia. The entire region has been embroiled in civil wars, take-overs, realignments and border wars for several hundred years, off and on. I believe Kosovo was a separate nation before WWII, and got thrown in with Yugoslavia after the dust settled.

The president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, has deployed his military in an effort to maintain the borders of his nation that have existed for 50 years.

You'll recall the president of the United States once deployed hundreds of thousands of troops against his own people. They scoured the Southern countryside, taking provisions and livestock from their owners, burning the crops and buildings of farmers who resisted, sometimes even forcing young men to put on uniforms and join the war against their will.

In some cases, these troops brutally murdered civilians, committed torture, rape and other atrocities.

People who lived in the South suffered terribly. Many starved or died of disease. It was years before the area began the slow process of recovery.

War is hell.

But all's well that ends well. We now have a stronger union and a better way of life, and the evil of slavery was ended.

President Clinton tells us that in Yugoslavia there is ethnic cleansing going on.

I haven't seen any evidence of this, haven't read any independent reports of anything like it. Refugees are pouring into neighboring Macedonia, but that's not unusual when there's a war. If a war comes through my neighborhood, I'm heading for the hills too.

Apparently, Yugoslavia was about to win the war and force Kosovans to continue as part of the larger country. The U.S. and NATO decided this shouldn't happen.

We sent Milosevic an ultimatum, telling him that he should invite NATO troops into his country to stand between Kosovo and Yugoslavian troops and enforce a peace agreement. Accept or be bombed.

He didn't accept, and so we are bombing. For the first time in the history of NATO, the 19 countries of the alliance are attacking a sovereign nation that is not attacking another nation. NATO is intervening in a civil war.

For the first time since Vietnam, the United States military is intervening in a civil war.

Among opponents of our involvement, the buzz words being thrown around are "end game" and "exit strategy." I don't see the relevance. The end game is that we hope our bombing will convince Milosevic to sign the peace agreement and allow foreign troops to come into his country. The exit strategy is that when we think we've accomplished that, we'll stop.

Our leaders aren't saying what happens if Milosevic doesn't blink, but I gather that European members of NATO will send in ground troops, defeat Milosevic's army and impose peace, forcing Milosevic to give Kosovo more autonomy, but maintaining it as part of Yugoslavia. This will anger Milosevic and the Kosovo Liberation Army equally, and either NATO will have to keep troops in Yugoslavia indefinitely, or fighting will resume as soon as they leave.

My prayers are with our military. I pray that they will be successful and all come home alive. They have been ordered into battle by the commander in chief, and they always answer that call.

But I have a nasty, creeping feeling that we are in the wrong in this fight. Even if we have the moral high ground, we don't have sufficient reason to involve U.S. forces. The atrocities in this war pale in comparison to others around the world that we are ignoring. The only justification would be that U.S. interests are at stake, and I don't believe that case can be made.

If we manage to enforce a peace without killing and maiming more people than the war itself would have, then we probably won't get too much of a black mark in the history books.