agreement from what the Administration had viewed as the most pliant side in the Kosovo conflict remained uncertain. A key ethnic Albanian guerilla leader, Hashim Thaci, skipped the Albanians' meeting with Mr. DoleaPerhaps most embarrassing, Mr. Thaci, a 29-year old commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, could not be founda" (Perlez 1999 16) Whatever the reasons for the no-show, the TIMES seemed to indicate it was an insult to the U.S. However, Bob Dole, certainly no diplomat of high ranking, was certainly not in a position to do any dealing- something surely Mr. Thaci understood.
The TIMES, also in 1999, seeks to provide a link between Nazi atrocities and those of the Serbs and Croatians, perhaps to inflame Americans as to the scope of human rights violations, or to give greater American consensus to American involvement, both militarily and diplomatically. "Although Mr. Milosevic is the prime mover behind the murder and agony that have filled our television screens for the better part of a decade, he has not acted alone. He may plan the strategy, but the Serbian people are willing instruments of his terrora" (Kaufman 1999 1) This article begins with that link to Germany where people "(who) might have been thought of as normal citizens to accept, support, and in many instances actively carry out Nazi policiesa" (Kaufman 1999 1) What seems obvious here is that the American mindset does not equate the Balkans with Western Europe, nor the Serbs, Croatians and others who were slaughtered with the Jews of the Holocaust. The TIMES is attempting to equate the two, to prepare its readers for the eventual trials to come (even though it would be nearly two years before that actually occurred).
With the American military presence diminished in that part of the world (only recently to be exposed as President Bush made a visit to the troops in Kosovo) the key interest of the TIMES in recent weeks has shifted to the capture, detent...