Russia and China were vehemently opposed in the Security Council. Even our own secretary of defense was uneasy that Americans did not know where Kosovo was and would not be happy to see U.S. troops sent there. There was a pressing need for the media to carry the right message and present the correct images without any overt censorship or any evidence that they were under pressure to manipulate public opinion. It soon became obvious that this war could not be won from a safe distance without risk of U.S. lives. By the time the administration decided to intervene in Yugoslavia, a civil war of modest proportions was already accompanying the break-up of the Yugoslav Republic.
Civil wars are brutal affairs.
Visual images of the killing of civilians, the burning of villages, and fleeing refugees are very powerful. If, as in this case, the spotlight is beamed exclusively on one faction while the others are unphotographed and unreported, the response of the American public is predictable. In the days preceding U.S. military action, anti-Serb propaganda filled the pages of our newspapers and the airwaves of the electronic media. Earlier atrocities visited on the Serbs were not reported. Time and again what we were told and shown about Serbia was offered without historical references, out of context.