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Messages are listed in reverse order, newest first.

It was a pleasure to read the excerpt via the net and i cant wait to get the book (tommorrow). Being a fellow countryman of Alma's i was profoundly shattered during the conflict and the media bias constantly bombarding us then and even now. Hope the book sells by the millions and the truth be revealed. (5/9/2002)
-- Bosko Kovacev

IT'S SOME GREAT READING THAT YOU OFFER TO PEOPLE. (5/8/2002)
-- JORDAN BABIC

I want to add my thanks to those of others to Alma and Deck for writng this book, thereby lifting the ideas it contains out of cyberspace into a medium with which I am more familiar and wherein I could find it, (like others, on a sales table. Sometimes the best books are on a sales table.) I was transfixed by it and (naively?) shocked by it's ending - I had been lulled into expecting a happy one. Your reading points on the website, which I'm surprised have not been mentioned by anyone else, are thought-provoking: eg. 'doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing at all'; The world is awash with situations around which revolve the same questions: the British in N.Ireland, Israel/Palestine, the Americans in Mogadishu made into a movie, the west in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kashmir...... Why for example couldn't the Israelis have gone into Djineen, which their army has just spent two weeks destroying, with food, supplies,goodwill and love to try to give the people something to live for in order to overcome the apparent flood of death-dealing suicide bombers coming from that place. How has their demolition of that place reduced the risk of suicide bombings? The answer has to be "it hasn't". If as they claim only 50 WERE killed, what has that done to achieve their aim? Were they all future suicide bombers? Hasn't their destruction and aggression instead bred more antagonism and taught the lesson of despair to yet another generation? The new ranks of suicide bombers are lining up now and my children's children will be listening to the same news items in 20 years time. Is it that war is an inalienable facet of human nature? Does it allow individuals to wrench meaning from their lives which otherwise resist their attempts to do so - espousing a cause and pulling the trigger or detonating the explosives, or simply being a witness to the destruction or being under threat of death can give rise to some of the finest qualities of the human spirit as seen in this book. Here in New Zealand, a country, like America, which has little known history and places little value on that which it has, many people feel it necessary to go overseas when young - Europe and Asia where there is so much history, and by seeing the world they become more acutely aware of what it is about their own country that they value. In war there is the added dimension of sacrifice - in any culture, just more dramatic in some - which people who are left behind or looking back feel thankful for to their soldiers/fathers/ancestors. I sometimes wonder why it is that I who have not been overseas or lost close relatives in war feel these things anyway, am already thankful for what I have? But we who can see these things clearly can perhaps do so only because we are not in positions of power and as a result will always be numbered among those who are victims of people who believe that doing anything is better than doing nothing at all. I keenly regret the loss of so much beauty and history in Yugoslavia and the grief of its people, and pray (vainly?) that the west's meddling there has ended. (4/16/2002)
-- Jon Harris

I love her (4/4/2002)
-- Bhavesh

Fantastic book.. only those with epals could understand how relationships can form online (3/23/2002)
-- Ian Gorski

A beautiful book, albeit the context of war. I suppose the death of Sasha poignantly shows the senslessness of war. If we only keep talking, perhaps more of us could discover the beauty of butterflies. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be taken on a completly different kind of jouney – to see us and the world from a totally different point of view. I liked the book in every sense and felt utterly moved, knowing how fortunate I am never to have experienced war (and hope I never will) – yet, how must it feel for those who did, do? My humble thanks to Alma and R.A. (2/11/2002)
-- Manuela Richter

Reading this book is particularily meaningful in the light of the current undeclared "War Against Terrorists" which is being played out in what is probably a severe over-kill of Afganistan. Again, we must struggle with how citizens can be patriots and not be wholly patriotic in the sense patriotism is too often defined by those in poltical power. (2/6/2002)
-- Edmund S.

I just want to say that this is a phenomenal unbelivably good idea, my congrats!!! (2/5/2002)
-- damian gunjak

Looks like a good book. Thankyou for speaking out. Unfortunately 90% of the American people are simply stupid. They don't want to talk about politics or religion (a major component of the Yugoslav Civil Wars). They just want to be TOLD what to believe. Thanks to books like yours and the internet, the American people could find the truth. 9/11 should have made it easy to follow the dots from Islamic fundamentalism in Kosovo to WTC. But Americans simply don't WANT to know. I fear for our future. Wishing You All the Best. The slim hope for a future free from the Evil Empire - the Cult of Death - lies in your hands and the few others like you. Diana Clarke (1/25/2002)
-- Diana Clarke

I am in the middle of reading your book and find that all my reactions to those days in 1999 come flooding back. Anger and frustration at the sheer bloody-mindedness of the powerful against the "other". I am writing my PhD thesis on NATO's public relations campaign during the war on Yugoslavia and your letters provide the personal experiences which are so absent from the "official" explanations. Thank you for publishing this important book. (1/24/2002)
-- Michele Orgad