It seems just a short time ago American forces were leading a military campaign in the Balkans. The story dominated the news coverage of the major television networks for months, both before and during NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia.
However, there has been a deafening silence about the aftermath of the war in Kosovo.
Either there is nothing to report on in the region or there is a calculated attempt to keep the American people in the dark regarding recent events.
Some alternative media sources say that the Yugoslavians are experiencing great hardships due to the American-led economic embargo against Slobodan Milosevic’s government.
I personally would like to know if Yugoslavians are suffering because of our actions. NATO forces did great damage to that nation’s infrastructure. Are men, women and children starving, while the rest of the world turns its back?
We all remember the pictures from war-torn Bosnia when that nation suffered through terrible winters while under military siege.
Americans were told by President Clinton and a supportive media that the Milosevic government was a revisitation of Germany’s Third Reich. Yet little evidence has been presented to support that assertion.
But I think there is another reason why we aren’t seeing the story from Belgrade and other parts of Yugoslavia.
The pictures of starving people would taint the memory of the war in Kosovo. Americans might start asking questions the Clinton administration does not want answered.
So while political turmoil continues to spread in Kosovo and a country suffers through the hardships of a Balkan winter, the region has vanished from sight, and, subsequently, the American psyche. And, for sure, that’s the way some people want it.
