For a whole decade and more there was no good news from the Balkans. [1] Since the fighting stopped, the consumer of Polish media had little chance to hear anything from the region; poor reports come only in time of elections or spectacular events like the assassination of Zoran Djindjic, riots in Kosovo or so on. Otherwise the information from former Yugoslavia rarely represent enough news value to get to pages of Polish dailies or TV news services.

But as the war with Iraq was approaching, the issue of Balkans came back to the Polish media and the public debate[2] . For few months preceding the war with Iraq and first few of it, conflicts in former Yugoslavia were often mentioned - usually in a very certain way[3] . As they appeared usually only as loose reference to some events, constructed in one or two sentences, the plot of the story usually represents frames adopted by media in nineties. Those are above the others frames of Balkan Holocaust, (first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo), failure of ‘international community’ (EU, UN) , humanitarian intervention (not war) and effectiveness and high moral standards of the US. Images of actors on the Balkan scene are highly stereotyped: Serbs are bad and savage, Bosnians, Croats and Albanians[4]   are victims of Nazi-style regime from Belgrade, but they are devoted to the idea of multicultural society, democracy, etc. They were all saved by successful interventions of the US, while Europe and UN were hopelessly watching genocide: America solved problems. As problems are solved Balkan are not any more on the agenda.

By reminding of these old frames, they are being recycled into debate about Iraq and thus they construct the image of present conflict. What is significant – by referring to ‘Yugoslavia’ the language used for media coverage of Balkan wars is applied to cover Iraq. From today’s perspective it may sound strange, but by the brink of  war there were politicians and publicists seriously speaking about Operation Iraqi Freedom as humanitarian operation - usually mentioning bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 as the model one. The humanitarian standards of military actions were one of the main frames commune to coverage of both wars. War  is not anymore a popular notion while talking about ‘our’ or our allies activities; usually notions like ’operation’ , ‘intervention’ or ‘crisis’ has been used . As Gen. Wesley Clark said about Yugoslav campaign: “It wasn't a War. There was no declaration of War. It wasn't legally a War. And we weren't going in there to conquer territory. It was simply one plank of the diplomatic strategy.”[5] This classical real politic idea, in the case of Balkans is applied in order to find another – more correct and more ‘friendly’ - notion to describe US policy as just and idealistic.[6] The bombing of Yugoslavia was the first war lunched from moral and humanitarian reasons, invading Iraq – the next one. Using of Balkans case to explain Middle East situation provides already tested (with good propaganda effect) language and the chance to universalize the issue of new moral politics. ‘Kosovo’ was a useful precedent, especially because, similarly to the Iraqi invasion, the US didn’t obtain the legal mandate from the Security Council for its action. But these wars are being fought for peace and justice. Marek Siwiec, the head of the (Polish) National Security Office referring on TV to an interview with a Polish general where the latter stated that “Bush should now destroy Iran and North Korea”, said that it was “a reflection of soldier’s dilemmas and dreams of peace.”[7] This kind of rhetoric was widely exercised by communist propaganda to justify all kind of Soviet military interventions – with rather poor success with the audience. But this time it is accepted seriously in the public debate and provides a useful definition of situation. As air strikes or invasion is not a war - victims are just collateral damage, no matter whether there are few hundreds of them like in ’99 or many thousands like in Iraq. Because they are collateral (in relation to other more important aspects of operations) - victims of ‘our’ actions practically don’t exist in media coverage of Iraqi war. In the Polish media it is much easier to find pictures of US (British, Polish) soldiers giving candies to Iraqi children , than soldiers ‘in action’. If “destroying” the country can be viewed as “dreaming about peace” - the lobby of mercenary firms (such as MPRI known in Macedonia and other Balkan states) can unsurprisingly be called International Peace Operations Association.

“All forms of moral engagement rely on narratives which turn history into a story of rights and wrongs”[8] - wrote in 1994 Michael Ignatieff expressing his bitterness, that West didn’t enough internalize the “true story of Bosnia” to intervene, while accepting false narratives about that war. The proper narrative is a key element of any involved, but his diagnose about the reasons of western passivity wasn’t correct. Bosnia since beginning of war had a good press (and PR), and although the picture of what was going on there was not clear , “by 1994, everybody had been convinced for a long time that in the story of Bosnia the Serbs were the "bad guys" and the only "bad guys". At the time almost nobody, and the international media in particular, could accept a story in which all the guys were bad.”[9]
Since than,  although the further Western performance toward Bosnia ( and in the next episode – toward Yugoslavia) can be seen in different ways, the West definitely not only accepted – but also developed the proper story of rights and wrongs. The story is   complete and integral; actors have known roles, there had been turns in action – but finally there was happy end. In a whole set of Balkan stereotypes “Kosovo” holds a very special place: as in opposition to “Bosnia” – it was a success story. But this success couldn’t be understood without the narrative, which gave (moral) foundations for the action – the lesson of previous wars in ex-Yugoslavia:  the failure of West in Bosnia, the image which was only slightly changed after successful American intervention and the Dayton.

While the US were preparing for a new war, Iraq had been incorporated as a sequel - as the actors are quite the same: impotent UN (Europe), idealistic United States and the bloody tyranny – Saddam Hussein is even worse Hitler than Milosevic. While Middle East is usually associated with oil (“No blood for oil”…) the Balkan frame helps to lift the debate to the higher level of universal values and moral obligations. The parallel allows one to transmit emotional package contained in such notions like Srebrenica, Sarajevo or Kosovo into the new, different context – without going any further in details. The moral imperative exercised in ‘Kosovo’ demands (or post factum justifies) the following action in Iraq.

The question to which extend images of Bosnia, Croatia or Kosovo Albanians have been created by PR or advertising agencies is open, but no doubt especially the ‘Holocaust frame’ was a spectacular success of such commercial activity. This job was even awarded in 1993 by American PR Association (in category of Crisis Communication).  James Harff, director of Global Public Affairs for Ruder & Finn who run the Bosnian campaign explained it in an interview:

“Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated. But, by a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys, which would thereafter play by itself. We won by targeting the Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with
the use of words with high emotional content, such as ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘concentration camps’, etc. which evoked images of Nazi  Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional charge was so powerful that nobody could go against it.”[10]
Of course Jewish communities were divided about using Holocaust to get the US involved on the Balkans – as breaking the taboo, but the story played on by itself. The language applied at that time never changed, and now it came back with issue of the invasion on Iraq.
At the beginning of the wars in the ex-Yugoslavia the dominant way of interpretation of the conflict was opposition: communist regime (Milosevic, Serbia) – countries fighting for freedom, as parallel process to what was just happening in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. Since introducing “concentration camps” Bosnian Holocaust became the main frame, which provided absolute measures of judging and indisputable limits for the debate. As Harff predicted, questioning the official line of interpretation became negationism similar to questioning the existence of gas chambers in Auschwitz. Serbs became Balkan Nazis, Milosevic became the Balkan Hitler; “Zlata’s diary” became a core point of every educational program about Holocaust. Such definition of the situation implies understanding of all the factors in the conflict with not much flexibility, and later events were easily integrated into the story.  Applying this frame stressed the moral and civilization aspect of the conflict: politics couldn’t be any more just the game of interests, couldn’t be amoral anymore. Further on – it’s not about politics anymore: in Bosnia and ‘Kosovo’ the US   intervened with no other business than saving lives – and this is what they were planning to do in Iraq. Since enemy is not “just” communist or communism – rival system, whole issue of international politics is being redefined and different images are introduced. The Balkan Nazism of Milosevic was absolute in terms of its terrible nature and the results it produced, but it was not universal as enemy and the target – it’s finished, it’s history. Now President Bush defines his enemy directly and simply - as ‘evil’. The concept is not exactly new. President Reagan called the Soviet Union ‘the Empire of evil’ , but since he supported all kinds of  right wing murderous  regimes his struggle against communism couldn’t be considered as easily on the moral ground, but rather on political one. Involvement on the Balkans and the proper narrative constructed alongside changed this situation.

Another frame often applied in context of the US activity, which have its roots in the Balkan is humanitarianism. One of the side effects of wars in ex-Yugoslavia was the rapid development of thousands of humanitarian organizations on the West, often called as humanitarian movement. Most of them had their origins in western anti war and anti nuclear movement of the seventies and eighties, by the beginning of nineties quite confused and unemployed. They accepted the principles arising from Geneva Conventions customary called humanitarian low, such as impartiality, neutrality and independence. War in Europe gave the new impulse for the activity. Many of them earned a big respect for their work, and although they were often established to help the people of Yugoslav countries, by the end of the war there they become huge and professional agencies. By the end of nineties the military planers of NATO realized that humanitarian work sells itself very well and they included this kind of activities to the framework of their future operations. In other words the militarization of humanitarian aid has started. The ‘Kosovo crisis’ was the first test, when NATO soldiers were assisting refugees in Albania and Macedonia and were trying to organize help. After the bombing as UN and NATO took control of Kosovo, humanitarian efforts were to a certain degree centralize by UNHCR, and specific regionalization was possible to observe: organizations from different countries were working in the areas of responsibility of their national contingents, and the latter ones often participate in different spectacular actions – in order to win the sympathy of the local people. (This pattern was later applied in Iraq – unsuccessfully, as it soon became a too dangerous place for any western NGOs.) On the beginning of the new century the NATO Civil-Military Co-operation (CIVIC) Doctrine has been adopted, with purpose to “establish and maintain the full co-operation of the NATO commander and the civilian authorities, organizations, agencies and population within a commander's area of operations in order to allow him to fulfill his mission.”[11] The idea is to include humanitarian aid as a part of the military operation, as a “flanking” activity in order to win battle for “heart and minds” of the local population in the concerning area, and for public opinion in their own countries. The extreme example of this kind of conception employed in real war was Afghanistan, when American aircraft along with cluster bombs were dropping packages with food – unfortunately very similar to the other items they delivered. No question that this is humanitarian work, as any army bombing or conquering other country can be neither neutral nor independent. And of course this kind of actions were loudly protested by many humanitarian organizations predicting the effect they will evoke: destroying the status of foreign humanitarian factor as impartial and non-political. As we could see in Skopje in 2001 after the evacuation of ONA fighters from Aracinovo, a crowd was attacking the offices and vehicles of foreign NGOs as symbols of foreign intervention. As militarization of humanitarian aid is deadly danger for the whole humanitarian movement it is a useful tool of image making for military. With supporting media, like we have the case of Iraq – it could work in desirable direction, presenting soldiers as peace makers bringing aid, and the war as “humanitarian operation”.

This motif, along with others borrowed from previews experiences with wars on the Balkans formed the main frames of discussions about “going to Iraq” in 2002/2003. They had as well major influence on creating image of the coming war and its main actor – United States.  As war started and continue they all generally disappeared proving their inadequacy, and showing they were just the rhetorical, propaganda constructs. “Stabilizing” the Middle East has turned out to be even more difficult than “stabilizing Kosovo”, and Balkan stereotypes prove not to be applicable this time any more. But the image created in a good part on Balkan frames is much more stable. As nobody uses anymore the term ‘concentration camps’ regarding Bosnia, absence of weapons of mass destruction is not the issue anymore.