10 Media complicity in a scripted
Balkan tragedy (excerpt)Lenora Foerstel
"If the media can influence public opinion and determine political decisions of the international community on key foreign policy issues, then the same media which belongs to certain nations and warring sides—by way of fabricated reports on actual or alleged actions—can become the most efficient instruments in achieving certain military and political goals.(1)"
By fallaciously attributing the breakup of Yugoslavia to "aggressive nationalism," the inevitable result of deep-seated ethnic and religious tensions rooted in history, the Western media served as a "Second Front" for German and U.S. involvement in the Balkans. The U.S. and Germany view Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldava, and the Ukraine as areas for future economic control. Germany has once more embraced its World War II goal of carving up Europe, this time using an economic strategy. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chancellor Helmut Kohl gained the opportunity to reunite the two parts of Germany and to formulate policy which would make Germany the dominant power in Europe.
Under the pretense of ensuring peace in the Balkans, the U.S. has used NATO troops to establish a wall of containment around Yugoslavia, forging military bonds with every country that borders Yugoslavia. Hungary, Romania, Macedonia and Albania are all participants in NATO’s Partnership for Peace, the U.S.-designed program for joint training and military ties. The U.S. provides Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims with military advisors, arms and training.
Germany and the U.S. are supporting a project "to build a new Balkan highway atop an ancient Roman road, the Via Egnatia, from the port city of Durres in Albania to Istanbul.(2)" This will open up better access to the Adriatic, Aegean and Black seas, and according to U.S. analysis, will break Serbia’s monopoly on transportation links to the Middle East.
Despite clear evidence that Serbia has been devastated by the American-led military action and economic boycott, the media continue to characterize Serbia as a powerful military threat to other Balkan countries. This has become the rationale for U.S. military industries to make huge profits by selling weapons to the Eastern European countries. The U.S. is considering the sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to the Polish government. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. has sold four C-130B Hercules military planes and five AN/F PS-117 surveillance radar units worth $82 million to Romania. "Romania has signed an agreement with Bell Helicopter Textron to begin producing AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters for the Romanian armed forces to be carried out between 1999 and 2005.(3)"
notes for this excerpt
(1) Z. Ivanovic, The Media War Against the Serbs (Belgrade: Republic of Serbia Ministry of Information, Tanjug News Agency, May 1994), p. 5.
(2) J. Pomfret, Washington Post, 19 December 1996, p. A-28.
(3) Ibid
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The full text of this chapter is available in the book, NATO in the Balkans. Link here for order information.
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