Between Iraq and a hard place: The use of propaganda during wartime
propaganda: Information, ideas, opinions or images, often only giving one part of an argument, which are broadcast, published or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people’s opinions
We view what Saddam Hussein has said as propaganda and lies.
To justify a preventive war that the United Nations and global public opinion did not want, a machine for propaganda and mystification, organized by the doctrinaire sect around George Bush, produced state-sponsored lies with a determination characteristic of the worst regimes of the 20th century.
One of the Iraq war’s major casualties is the credibility of the American media. Nobody takes it seriously.
So when Al-Jazeera shows Iraqi children slaughtered as a result of the war in Iraq, it’s propaganda. But when FOX News praises the actions of the U.S. military in Iraq, it’s unbiased reporting. No-spin zone, my ass.
I saw Tom Brokaw live on national TV the other night commenting about “how successful we were” during one of the battles in Iraq. He quickly realized he’d blown his journalistic cover and crawfished. Er, uh, that is, how successful “the United States was.” Too late; Tom’s slip of the tongue revealed his true viewpoint.
Of course, everyone who communicates does so with a built-in bias—individuals and governments alike. The Bush administration and those who support the war in Iraq put a positive spin on the U.S. and British activities there. Iraqi spokespeople make statements designed to make their nation’s accomplishments resonate with their citizens and the Muslim world.
But somehow here in America, we’ve come to believe that what comes out of the mouths of our politicians and journalists is the truth, while the pronouncements of anyone who disagrees with us—the French, the Russians, the Iraqis, ad infinitum—are all lies.
So based on the definition of propaganda above, how would you rate the stories floated by the Bush administration that implied that a connection between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11, stories often carried by our media with little critical analysis? No such association has been proven, yet seventy-five percent of those Americans polled by CNN/USA Today/Gallup during March 14-15, 2003 said that this hypothetical link was the main reason or at least one reason that they supported the invasion of Iraq.
If propaganda was used to manipulate U.S. citizens to support a war in which they have no abiding interest, it wasn’t the first time.
Spanish-American War—Remember the Maine? The cause of the explosion that sunk the Maine in Cuban waters and killed some two hundred fifty American soldiers is believed by many to have been caused by an on-board accident. But U.S. newspapers took up the drumbeat that a Spanish torpedo or mine was to blame, and shortly thereafter war was declared on Spain.
World War I—President Woodrow Wilson, elected as a peace candidate, led the nation into war. He created domestic support for this endeavor through the activities of the Committee on Public Information, an organization that blended advertising techniques and psychology to disseminate propaganda about the dire need to protect our nation from the rapacious Huns.
Vietnam War—By reporting unsubstantiated government allegations that U.S. ships were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin as factual (when they were not), the American media became complicit in Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War.
Gulf War I—A tale of invading Iraqi soldiers throwing sick Kuwaiti babies from incubators onto the floor to die became a primary motivator in our march toward the Gulf War. Recounted to Congress in November 1990, it later came to light that the fifteen-year-old girl telling the story had been coached in her lies by a well-known public relations firm and that she was the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait.
But this war is different, right? Embedded reporters in the field bring us first hand accounts of the action, letting us judge the merits of their stories for ourselves. According to Robert Jensen, journalism professor at the University of Texas, “The embedded reporter system has produced a lot of copy and images, but not much understanding of what the war is about. U.S. reporters are publishing and broadcasting most anything U.S. officials say, even though much of it is turning out to be false or misleading.”
False and misleading? How about some examples from the field?
- A huge chemical weapons plant has been discovered in Jajaf. Oh, false alarm.
- Iraqi citizens are greeting Americans as liberators. Wrong again.
- A major Iraqi civilian uprising is underway in Basra. Never happened.
- When U.S. troops cross the red line, the Iraqis are likely to unleash chemical weapons against them. This line was an imaginary one created by CNN, and the Iraqis never used chemical weapons.
- Our precision weaponry is ensuring that very few Iraqi civilians are being killed. So far over six thousand Iraqi civilian deaths have occurred that can be confirmed by at least two news-gathering agencies, according to the Iraqi Body Count website.
Of course the embedded reporters are seeing what the U.S. military wants them to see and hearing what its wants them to hear. Plus, in such a situation reporters may lose their independence and ability to report critically on the war. Who’s going to criticize the folks upon whom your life depends?
So where is one to go for unbiased news coverage of the war? According to Robert Jensen, “All news comes from a political position, and the key to understanding the world is reading widely. I try to read the mainstream U.S. press, the U.S. alternative media, and newspapers around the world. No one source is completely trustworthy.”
Saturday, April 5th, 2003No Comments »
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