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Date sent: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 22:45:57 -0400
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Subject: [FAIR-L] FAIR Media Advisory -- THEY CALL THIS VICTORY?
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FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
FAIR Media Advisory -- THEY CALL THIS VICTORY?
Bombing "Success" Must Be Weighed Against Human Cost, Missed Chances
for
Peace
June 4, 1999
Media commentators have been asserting that the Kosovo peace plan
adopted June 3 by the Serbian Assembly vindicates NATO's airstrikes on
Yugoslavia.
A New York Times editorial (6/4/99) claimed the plan, if genuine,
shows that NATO's "sustained bombing has been more effective than many
critics allowed" and represents a "victory for the principles of
democracy and human rights."
The Washington Post's Stephen Rosenfeld wrote (6/3/99): "They said
Bill Clinton was wrong to rely on air power alone to win the war, and --
assuming the details are mastered -- they were wrong.... This time
around, anyway, he showed he was right. His weighing of means and ends
finally clicked."
USA Today's Walter Shapiro stated (6/4/99): "The record must show that
Bill Clinton did the morally right thing. And if his efforts are crowned
with a lasting peace in the Balkans, the president deserves the gratitude
of all of us who doubted his resolve and courage."
CNN's Christiane Amanpour (6/3/99) said that the "plan amounts to
[Milosevic] accepting less than he would have come away with had he
agreed several months ago at the Rambouillet talks."
These interpretations are seriously misleading. Seventy days of
bombing in the Balkans have brought an agreement from Yugoslavia whose
terms, in many important respects, diverge little from those Yugoslavia
accepted before the first shot was fired. To a great extent, an end to
the war seems possible now not because massive bombing forced Yugoslavia
to capitulate, but because the U.S. seems to be willing to drop
conditions that it had previously insisted Belgrade must meet before
bombing could be halted.
Indeed, the media notion of Serb capitulation seemed to rely on a cue
from NATO powers, as evidenced by this CNN report from correspondent
Walter Rodgers (6/3/99): "It's difficult to say whether it's a
capitulation. It really isn't even up for me to say that, that is
something that has to be decided by someone like the president of the
United States, Britain's prime minister, Mr. Blair."
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
At Rambouillet, before the bombing began, Yugoslavia had agreed to
almost all the points that are contained in the June 3 Serbian
Assembly resolution, including autonomy for Kosovo. (See "Forgotten
Coverage of Rambouillet Negotiations: Was a Peaceful Kosovo Solution
Rejected by the U.S.?," FAIR Media Advisory, 5/14/99.) A major point
insisted on by the U.S. at Rambouillet -- a referendum on Kosovo's
independence after three years -- is now absent from the Serb Assembly
decision, without audible complaint from U.S. officials.
What Yugoslavia rejected at Rambouillet was the idea of a NATO-led
force in Kosovo, proposing instead a U.N. command. It also objected to a
last-minute addition to the agreement known as Appendix B, which would
have given NATO sweeping powers throughout all of Yugoslavia.
There is strong evidence that the U.S. intentionally crafted this
document to provoke a rejection from the Serbs. (See "What Reporters Knew
About Kosovo Talks--But Didn't Tell," FAIR Media Advisory, 6/2/99.) A
State Department official reportedly told journalists at Rambouillet
(Cato Institute conference, 5/18/99; see also The Nation, 6/14/99): "We
intentionally set the bar too high for the Serbs to comply. They need
some bombing, and that's what they are going to get."
After two and a half months of that bombing, the Serb parliament
agreed to a peacekeeping force "under U.N. auspices" in which there
would be "essential NATO participation." This language is only
slightly different from the Yugoslavian position at Rambouillet, and
there are suggestions that Belgrade was willing to accept such a
compromise peacefully (Newsweek, 4/12/99).
THE PRICE
What was the price of the failure to reach an agreement at
Rambouillet? 800,000 Kosovars have fled the province since the start of
the bombing; many will never return to homes that are now destroyed.
According to the Pentagon, the bombing killed 5,000 Yugoslavian soldiers,
while Belgrade reports that NATO killed 1,200 civilians. The U.S. State
Department claims that upwards of 4,600 Albanians have been killed by
Yugoslavia since NATO announced bombing plans; if all of these are
non-combatants, then several hundred if not thousands of Kosovo
Liberation Army fighters must be added to the war's death toll.
Rather than seriously questioning the costs of the bombing, media
sometimes don't even bother to tally them. The Los Angeles Times
(6/4/99) mentioned the Pentagon's casualty estimates for Serb
soldiers, but referred to the "unknown number of civilians" killed by
NATO bombs. In fact, verified media reports of civilian deaths can be
easily tallied. But in an accompanying "By the Numbers" accounting of war
damage, U.S. estimates of command posts and armored tanks destroyed are
included--while civilian deaths are completely ignored.
The debate in U.S. media was almost never between bombing and a
non-military solution, but between bombing and sending in ground
troops. Accordingly, President Clinton is now being proclaimed a
victor because a return of some of the expelled Albanians seems
possible without ground combat. Washington Post media reporter Howard
Kurtz (6/4/99), in fact, now wonders if the "commentators who castigated
the White House for utterly and completely bungling the war might say
they were wrong?"
Before treating Clinton as a strategic genius, however, media need to
answer the question: If the United States had negotiated in better faith,
could a similar agreement have been reached at Rambouillet without the
staggering cost in human life?
For FAIR's complete coverage of NATO's war in Yugoslavia, including
previous media advisories, go to
http://www.fair.org/international/yugoslavia.html
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