The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

U.S. Media Coverage of Srebrenica
✱ In none of the articles is it suggested that the United States and its
NATO allies have any interest in the Balkans except as honest brokers
and peace-makers pained by ethnic cleansing. They are regularly portrayed
as mainly good-hearted but ineffectual bunglers, who failed to
recognize evil and intervene with force. 25 Could German and Austrian
policy be based on traditional hostility to the Serbs and a desire to renew
their earlier sphere-of-influence role in that area now that the Soviet
Union was gone and any reason to support an independent Yugoslavia
had ended? 26 Could the Clinton administration be intervening at the
behest of powerful lobbies, 27 or to strengthen relationships with Muslim
allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, 28 or to distract attention from
political problems at home? These questions never arose once in the 95
article set, nor did they ever arise in Marlise Simons’ numerous articles
in the New York Times on the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslav. 29
✱ In none of the articles was it ever suggested that the Bosnian Muslims
needed a “Srebrenica massacre” to achieve their political aims, and
that they played an important role in facilitating the Srebrenica takeover,
in assuring some killings, and in helping produce an adequate number
massacred. None of the articles mention the credible report that Clinton
told Izetbegovic that he needed 5,000 bodies at Srebrenica to obtain
NATO military support. 30 None of them mention the fact that the
Bosnian Muslims refused to provide the Red Cross with the names of
people who fled Srebrenica and made it to Bosnian Muslim lines, which
would have reduced the initially established “missing” total. None of
them mention the claims and evidence that Izetbegovic and associates
were willing to kill or see killed their own civilians and personnel to
make political capital. 31 None of them mention the ease with which a
small number of Bosnian Serbs were able to capture Srebrenica in July
1995 and none speculate on the politics of the Bosnian Muslim withdrawal.
32
✱ Although the articles regularly mention that Srebrenica was declared
a “safe area,” and stress both the Bosnian Serb violation of their
safety and the UN failure to protect it, they give little or no attention
to the fact that the Bosnian Muslims were supposed to have been disarmed
in those areas, but were not and in fact carried out regular forays
against the nearby Serb towns from those safe retreats. Ignoring this
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