Page 190 - The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War ini Kosovo

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THE KOSOVO CRISIS—THE MICRO REVIEW
Joseph Biden, an influential member in the Senate on foreign policy
issues,
For the American people and many in Congress, the horror wrought by
Milosevic was brought home in horrific fashion when images of the
massacre in the village of Racak were transmitted around the world in
January 1999. Forty-five Kosovar Albanians were slaughtered, and the
pictures of their corpses galvanized public opinion in favor of some
95
Western action.
In the immediate aftermath of Racak, there was a reinvigorated
sense of outrage in the U.S. legislature. Several days after the Racak
massacre, describing images he had witnessed on television, a member
of the House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer, said,
. . . Ambassador Walker called it genocide, which truly it was, a crime
against humanity—people lying on the ground, children, women shot
at close range, in their faces and in the backs of their heads ...Mr
Speaker, we focus on a lot of things in America, but we need to focus
on the fact that we are the leader. And in that position we have a
responsibility to come together with the rest of Europe to make sure
that genocide has a consequence, that genocide is stopped, and people 155
are saved. 96
The main congressional debates that showed that the political
ground had clearly shifted toward military intervention took place in
March before the NATO bombing began. During these debates, it
was apparent that Racak and other images of atrocity and suffering
played a significant role in promoting this shift, as members of
Congress often referred to them as part of their rationale for support-
ing U.S. military action through NATO. While these debates
occurred outside the January 16 to February 15 timeframe, their con-
tent, in relation to the CNN effect, will be reviewed under this phase
because they link more closely to the post-Racak sentiments that were
stalled by a final attempt at diplomacy at Rambouillet.
The first of these debates occurred in the House of Representatives
on March 11. At stake was House Concurrent Resolution 42 regard-
ing the use of U.S. Armed Forces as part of a NATO peacekeeping
operation implementing a Kosovo peace agreement. 97 This ten-hour
marathon session involved arguments from dozens of House
Representatives both in favor of and against the use of U.S. peace-
keepers in Kosovo. Those in support often claimed to have been
swayed by media images of Racak and other Kosovo tragedies. In one