These requirements sharply limit the range of acceptable action, but they also create certain requirements to act. And if brutalities or war crimes take place, then they look as ugly on the nightly news as increased crime at home. No sane politician today can ignore such images, especially if there are parts of the audience that can especially easily identify with the victims. Most of the journalists and politicians involved, probably feel genuine compassion for the victims and genuine outrage at the perpetrators of war crimes. But their genuineness is less at issue than their success at seeming concerned, whether genuinely or not.
T here are two major sets of images involved in determining the Kosovo war.
One is the wounded soldier, or worse yet the body bag, together with worried or grieving relatives and friends at home. This set has played a key role in making conventional warfare unthinkable under most circumstances. President Clinton discovered this in the case of Mogadishu, had he not recognized it before. That is the rule, to be broken only at extreme peril to political success. Only if troop deaths are kept in the general range that would occur even without a war is the politician who put them in harm's way now safe.