Page 14 - The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War ini Kosovo

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Foreword
In the opening scene of Hamlet, Shakespeare conjures up the ethereal
form of the young king’s murdered father. The ghost appears first to
Marcellus and Bernardo, the two night watchmen, and to Hamlet’s
friend and counselor Horatio, all of whom gaze at it with great appre-
hension and dread. Horatio commands: “Stay! speak, speak! I charge
thee, speak!” but the apparition says nothing. It is only during a
second appearance when Hamlet is present that it speaks, bidding
Hamlet to follow. For fear of what the apparition may become,
Horatio expresses his fears should Hamlet comply.
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea, 1
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? 2
The ghost beckons Hamlet to avenge a wrong: his own politically
motivated murder. At the heart of the matter is revenge, bloodlust,
and honor. Horatio, Hamlet’s counselor, tells his young protégé to,
essentially, let sleeping dogs be, for we do not know what results
tomorrow will bring from impetuous actions taken today. This desire
to right wrongs, to address blood grievances will, Horatio fears, tempt
him toward disaster.
Great spectacles concerning honor, revenge, and duty to one’s
bloodline have been the stuff of great political storytelling from time
immemorial. Their relevance to politics today is as great as ever. With
some liberties, Horatio might be understood to express the concerns
of the Realist school of foreign policies regarding the role of similar
emotions in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Sentimentality, accen-
tuated by dramatic media coverage, might drive political leaders to the
brink of the summit’s cliff that beetles over its base. Emotion in foreign
policymaking invites disaster.