A shattered apartment block, a gutted passenger train, a devastated refugee convoy–scenes of destruction caused by U.S. bombing are becoming more and more common as the war with Yugoslavia drags on. Whether you hold Slobodan Milosevic or Bill Clinton more to blame for the consequences of NATO bombing, one group of people has so far escaped much criticism for its responsibility for the growing number of civilian casualties: the U.S. media.
Since the start of NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia, some prominent media commentators have actually criticized the U.S. and NATO for taking steps to prevent civilian deaths. Some have seemed to be calling for intentional attacks on civilians.
New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman wrote on April 6 that “people tend to change their minds and adjust their goals as they see the price they are paying mount. Twelve days of surgical bombing was never going to turn Serbia around. Let’s see what 12 weeks of less than surgical bombing does. Give war a chance.”
Likewise, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on April 8 criticized the “excruciating selectivity” of NATO’s bombing raids and applauded the fact that “finally they are hitting targets–power plants, fuel depots, bridges, airports, television transmitters–that may indeed kill the enemy and civilians nearby.”
In the April 5 Time magazine, reporter Bruce Nelan took issue with NATO’s use of lighter bombs in the Yugoslav war, noting that “smaller bombs means there’s less certainty about destroying the target in one attack. And if the pilot has to come back, that increases the risk to him in order to lessen the risk of civilians on the ground–a kind of Disneyland idea of customer service that rankles many war fighters at the Pentagon.”
Faced with such criticism, NATO has indeed relaxed the rules of engagement for the bombing campaign, quite predictably increasing the number of innocents killed by U.S. bombs. Given that this war is ostensibly being fought because Yugoslav forces killed too many civilians in their war with separatist guerrillas, the media cheerleading for killing non-combatants seems hypocritical, to say the least.
ACTION: Please write to national and local media outlets and ask them to fully cover the civilian victims on both sides of the war. If their reporters or commentators have called for or celebrated attacks on or near civilians, demand that they find room for the opinion that war crimes by all parties are unacceptable.
CONTACT:
New York Times
letters@nytimes.com
Washington Post
ombudsman@washpost.com
Time magazine
letters@time.com
Other media outlets
www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html
