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1:Propaganda and war by Giles Ward-Best Introduction The purpose of my research is to find out whether or not world media of the twentieth and twenty-first century employ the tactic of propaganda surrounding war situations, wittingly or unwittingly on behalf of the governments. Also whether the use of the media is effective in controlling the minds of the populace before, during and after major conflicts between countries. To begin with I shall try and explain propaganda and its purposes, then I shall take a more in-depth look at some of the wars in which propaganda tactics have been adopted by the governments at the time, these will include the Gulf war, the Kossovo conflict, and the first and second world wars. Some of the questions I shall try to answer by way of text content, will be whether or not the modern wars waged by the west are wholly justified. Is the public being mislead over reasons for war and are we to trusting of the stories we are fed by the media. 1 Propaganda and war 1:1 The meaning of propaganda The organised spreading of doctrine, true or false information, opinions, etc, especially to bring about change or reform; an association or scheme for doing this; the information, etc spread, a roman catholic committee, founded in 1622, responsible for foreign missions and the training of missionaries. 1:2 Elements of propaganda Probably all conflicts are fought on at least two grounds: the battlefield and the minds of the people via propaganda the “good guys” and the “bad guys” can often both be guilty of misleading their populace with distortions, exaggerations, subjectivity, inaccuracy and even out right lies, in order to receive support and a sense of legitimacy. Propaganda can serve to rally people behind a cause, by using exaggeration, misrepresentation and even lies about the issues to gain support. Those who promote a negative image of the “enemy” may often reinforce it with rhetoric about the righteousness of themselves; the attempt is to muster up support and nurture the belief that what is to be done is in the beneficial interest of everyone. Often, the principles used to demonise the enemy are not used to judge the self, which can lead to accusations of double standards and hypocrisy. 2 Common tactics in propaganda Using selective stories that come over as wide covering and objective. Partial facts, or historic context. Reinforcing reasons and motivations to act due to threats on security. Narrow sources of “experts” to provide insights into the situation (for example, the main stream media will typically interview retired military personnel for many conflict related issues, or treat official government sources as fact, rather than just one perspective that needs to be verified and researched). Demonising the enemy who do not fit the picture of what is right. Judgements are often made while, the boundary of discourse itself, or the framework within which the opinions are formed are often not discussed. The narrow focus then helps to serve the interests of the propagandists. Professor Johann Galtung, a professor of peace studies, expresses twelve points of concern where journalism often goes wrong when dealing with conflicts and violence. Decontextualizing violence: focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons for unresolved conflicts and polarisation. Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, when often more are involved. Stories that just focus on internal developments often ignore such outside or “external” forces as foreign governments and transnational companies. Manicheanism: portraying one side as good and demonising the other as “evil” 3 Armageddon: presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives. Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding structural causes, like poverty, government neglect and military or police repression. Confusion: focusing only on the conflict arena (i.e., the battlefield or location of violent incidents) but not on the forces and factors that influence the violence. Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining why there are acts of revenge and spirals of violence. Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself. Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, especially big powers. Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes. Confusing cease-fires and negotiations with actual peace. Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to remerge if attention is not paid to efforts to heal fractured societies. When news about attempts to resolve conflicts are absent, fatalism is reinforced. That can help engender even more violence, when people have no images or information about possible peaceful outcomes and the promise of healing. (Emphasis added) Danny Schechter, covering violence:, July 18, 2001 1:3 Preparing a nation Award winning investigative journalist, Phillip Knightley, points out four stages 4 In preparing a nation for war, in an article published in the Guardian. The crisis; (the reporting of a crisis which negotiations appear unable to resolve. Politicians, while calling for diplomacy, warn of military retaliation. The media reports this as “we’re on the brink of war”, or “war is inevitable”, etc.) The demonisation of the enemy’s leader; (comparing the leader to Hitler is a good start because of the instant images that Hitler’s name provokes!) The demonisation of the enemy as individuals; (for example, to suggest the enemy is insane.) Atrocities. (Even making up stories to whip up and strengthen emotional reactions.) Knightley also writes: “one difficulty is that the media have little or no memory. War correspondents have short working lives and there is no tradition or means for passing on their knowledge and experience. The military, on the hand, is an institution and goes on forever. The military learnt a lot from Vietnam and these days plans its media strategy with as much attention as its military strategy.” –Phillip Knightley, the Guardian, March 20, 2000 1:4 Four levels of propaganda According to Arthur Siegel a social science professor at York University in Toronto, there are four levels of propaganda. The first level is the big lie, adapted by Hitler and Stalin. The state controlled Egyptian press has been spreading a big lie, saying the world trade centre 5 Was attacked by Israel to embarrass Arabs. The second layer says, ‘It doesn’t have to be the truth so long as its plausible.’ The third strategy is to tell the truth but withhold the other sides point of view.’ The forth and most productive is to tell the truth, the good, the bad, the losses and the gains. Governments in western society take the last three steps. The avoid the big lie which nobody here will swallow. Beth Gillin, the Philadelphia Inquirer, October 21, 2001 1:5 The positive and the negative According to many social scientists war propaganda is more than just lies and hidden truths, its actually an art and scientific process, for which a great deal of planning is actually required, and also this kind of distortion to the truth isn’t just restricted to use by the more extreme governments of the world. When a spokesperson for a government speaks to the media on the issues of a current conflict, the words for the speech will have been more than likely chosen very carefully in order to strike home the right messages among the populace, here are a collection of those positive and negative words. When speaking of the enemy “Compassion” is not enough. Anti-(issue)flag, child, jobs 6 Betray Coercion Collapse Consequences Corruption Crisis Decay Deeper Destroy Destructive Devour Endanger Failure Greed Hypocrisy Ideological Impose Incompetent Insecure Liberal Lie Limit(s) Pathetic Permissive attitude Radical Self serving Sensationalists Shallow Sick They/them 7 Threaten Traitors Unionised bureaucracy Urgent Waste When speaking of themselves or their policies Active(ly) Activist Building Candid(ly) Care(ing) Challenge Change Children Choice/Choose Commitment Common sense Compete Confident Conflict Control Courage Crusade Debate Dream Duty Empower(ment) Fair 8 Family Freedom Hard work Help Humane Incentive Initiative Lead Learn Legacy Liberty Moral Opportunity Passionate Peace Principle Prosperity Protect Proud/pride Reform Rights Strength Success Tough Truth Unique Vision We/us/our This list was compiled by the (GOPAC) the Newt Gingrich’s political action 9 Committee, in a pamphlet entitled – language, a key mechanism of control. 2: The Gulf war There can be many different propaganda tactics employed by governments during conflicts, during the Gulf war with Iraq the US and the UK dominated the offensive backed by the UN. Sanctions On august 6th 1990 economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq, it was on this date that two or more PSYOPS (Psychological warfare operations) battalions of the US army were actively commissioned for wartime duty. They were instructed to compose leaflets of a strategic kind, which would include safe conduct passes with both coercive and threatening texts. To compose such anti-Iraq literature in Arabic required the co-operation of the Kuwaitis and Saudi Arabians, as it was absolutely necessary to ensure that any texts they intended to use did not offend Arab culture or in any manner detract from the determination of the Arab and other members of the coalition to carry out the declared wishes of the united nations with regard to the invasion, occupation and retaking of Kuwait. Secret deals Three secret directives involving propaganda against Iraq were signed by president Bush for and on behalf of the main protagonists, including the Kuwait resistance body. The composition and the text of the tactical leaflets were decided by US and Saudi teams and would later be used when the hostilities began. 10 Surrender passes Amongst the literature to be dropped by air within the occupied Kuwait were surrender passes. There were eight or nine basic types of surrender pass, one of which was a facsimile 25-dinar banknote in its original colour. (See fig.1&2) It was used to attract the attention of the Iraqi soldiers as they fell to the ground. On the back of each banknote was a message informing the soldier either how to surrender, his treatment as a prisoner-of-war, an antiSaddam caricature or information that the Iraqi currency was already debased. The banknotes are believed to have been printed in Turkey. An estimated thirty million leaflets of all kinds are officially alleged to have been printed and disseminated during the short war. (Fig 1) 25-dinar banknote (Fig 2) Anti-Saddam caricature on reverse of banknote The caption reads “I have carried you for 11 years. I have no more strength to carry you any more.” The sign reads “Kuwait” Threats At the same time as being offered the opportunity to surrender to the coalition forces, Iraqi soldiers were being showered with leaflets threatening them with the dire results of being bombed if they did not shift position. One leaflet used to intimidate them had the outline of an aerial bomb and had the message “this is a demonstration. It could have been a real bomb” (See fig 3) but one of these ‘outline bomb’ types, represent the BLU-82 aerial bomb, the size of a 11 VW Beetle car and weighing seven tons. (Fig 3) Aerial bomb leaflet According to western reports in the field, the safe conduct passes were very sought after and desertions began almost as soon as the west became involved after the occupation of Kuwait City. There has since been no mention of the millions of post cards that were dropped, so this information can be considered as pure propaganda. 2:1 Media and Iraq During the gulf war the US/UK government had been accused of withholding information, which meant that the media portrayal would not have given a complete picture. The often presented fact that there were no casualties led to claims of a new type of war that could be successfully fought, it was often not clarified that there were a lot of Iraqi casualties and probably over half of them civilians. When 30 to 50 people are killed together by the enemy the same media will 12 describe that as a massacre. As an example of media manipulation, here is a quote from an article on journalism and reporting on peace and conflict. The typical justification tactics used by proponents of military intervention brought us entirely false reports in 1990, that Iraqi soldiers were killing babies in Kuwait city by switching off hospital incubators – brought to us by Washington PR firm Hill and Knowlton. Maggie O’Kane whose investigation into media manipulations leading up to and during the Gulf war of 1991 won the Cameron award when published in the Guardian and was broadcast on channel 4, recounted her meeting with nurses at the hospital who were utterly mystified by these stories. The source turned out to be the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington, who was presented to the US congress as a nurse but, in fact, had not been to Kuwait in years. As O’Kane says: there is always a dead babies story. The effect is to demonise the enemy and create a sense of urgency, which admits no time for diplomacy. 3: The Kosovo conflict NATO bombings on Serbia started on March 24th 1999 and has been accompanied by mainstream media one-sidedness and lack of objectivity or a real look at alternatives. And now according to some new reports on what happened, new evidence emerged confirming that the US deliberately set out to thwart the Rambouillet peace talks in France in order to provide a trigger for Nato’s bombing of Yugoslavia. 13 A senior US State department official has said that the US had ‘set the bar to high’ for the Serbs and that they needed some bombing and yet the mainstream media has ignored this Of all the mass graves and other massacre sites that the western media used to drum up support for the NATO campaign, subsequent investigations by various western institutions found none of them. It is also remarkable that NATO has achieved a peace treaty that is almost the same as what was proposed before the bombing began except it has been very costly to human life and the environment. In fact, both NATO and Milosevic have actually given up some of the aspects of what the original Rambouillet accord demanded. 3:1 Claims that are not verified Western mainstream media has been often criticised for its one sided reporting of the situation, but also the way in which it trusted official sources, especially after the missed lessons taught before, during and after the gulf war; in which the media either purposely mislead the public or were grossly mislead by official sources. Michael Parenti political scientist and author describes his view of Nato’s agenda. “In sum, NATO leaders used vastly inflated estimates of murdered Kosovo Albanians as a pretext to intrude on the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, destroy much of its infrastructure and social production, badly damage its ecology, kill a substantial amount of citizens, and invade and occupy a large portion of its territory in which can only be termed a war of aggression.” –Michael Parenti 2000 14 The Serb media also came out with claims that could not be verified, but while the west’s media treated the Serbs claims with due suspicion, NATO claims were just taken without any research into their validity, one of Nato’s claims was that the bombing of the Serb television stations had been done to stop the Serb/Milosevic propaganda to the Serb people. Unfortunately it also meant that NATO effects of bombing were also prevented from being reported. Though still the most questionable claim from NATO was that of the mass graves. “On April 19th, the US State department states that up to 500,000 Kossovar Albanians were missing or feared dead. On May 16 th US defence secretary William S Cohen said that up to 100,000 Albanian men in Kosovo had vanished and may have been killed. On November 11th a New York times article reported that after five months of investigation and exhumation of 195 most serious grave sites, reported to hold thousands of bodies, they had not found even a fraction of the reported 500,000 or 100,000 bodies. Their total count was 2,108 bodies throughout the province. They found no mass graves.” –Sara Flounders, Censored 2000, p.43 There are of course questions and concerns about weather bodies from mass graves had in some way been hidden, moved or destroyed, and there have been claims of this, but again they are claims that haven’t yet been all verified. One of the main issues here is how the media repeated these claims in the lead-up to the war, in essence, unwittingly or not, drumming up support for military action. Similarities Both conflicts mentioned have certain similarities, in the way mainstream media was flooded with stories of the enemy, and for their apparent lack of interest for analysing the situations beyond what they were told officially. 15 4: The first world war Of course propaganda in war isn’t a new phenomena, it has been probably used world-wide since the beginning of time, and although television wasn’t yet a tool for it, during the first world war propaganda was advertised on billboard posters, in newspapers and on the radio. One of the biggest strategies during this war was for recruitment, unlike the previous wars mentioned that were by and large fought from the air, the first world war was fought from the trenches, so all sides involved needed constant fresh supplies of men to run from the trenches towards the enemy. Posters, art and postcard were used to promote and glorify young men going to war for their country (see figs 4and5) (Fig 4) English postcard (Fig 5) German postcard some other examples of this is in posters, one poster shows an old man and a 16 lady saying “Go, its your duty lad” and another shows a middle aged man with his daughter on his knee, and his young son playing with his toy soldiers, the caption says “Daddy what did YOU do in the great war” these images were maybe used to utilise the guilt and humiliation of a father not being able to tell his children what he did in the war. 4:1 Anti German propaganda A particularly effective strategy for demonising Germans was the use of atrocity stories, it has been employed with unvarying success in every conflict known to man, unlike the pacifist, who argues that all wars are brutal, the atrocity story implies that war is only brutal when practised by the enemy, after the war, Edward Bernays, who directed CPI propaganda efforts in Latin America, openly admitted that his colleagues used alleged atrocities to provoke public outcry against Germany. Although anti German propaganda fuelled support for the war it also contributed to intolerance from the American home front, where dachshunds were re-named liberty dogs, German measles were re-named liberty measles, and the city university of New York reduced by one credit every course in German. Fourteen states banned the speaking of German; such was the power of the propaganda. 5: Questions to today’s public To try and get some of the views of others I set out three questions and put them to fifteen different people in short interviews. My first question was, if the 17 name Saddam Hussein is mentioned what media story do you think of?, these are the answers I got; the occupation of Kuwait; killing his own people; building weapons of mass destruction; using a western child for an interview; poisoning of the Kurds, and the burning of the oil fields. My second question was, when our nation goes to war do you think we are being told the whole story, half the story, or a different story?, of the fifteen asked, nine said we were being told half the story, and six said we were getting a different story, nobody at all thought we were being given the whole story. My third and final question was, is a Government justified to lie even though the truth may damage its cause?, from the same fifteen people five said yes the believed it was justified, and ten said no they weren’t justified to lie. 6: Conclusion The main problem I found during this research is that when dealing with official half truths or lies, was the fact that officially they would never admit them, which subsequently means that the sources relied upon are from part investigation and part speculation, and although in this paper I have tried to balance the view of propaganda, anyone who looks for and speaks of official propaganda, may also be accused of using anti-establishment propaganda themselves. One of my main findings is that in contrast to the first world war, were the propaganda was seen as acceptable, and the people felt the cause was greater than the questions that needed asking, the more modern media fought wars, are more so under question with regards to their justness and the misleading of information. From the interviews I carried out it really didn’t surprise me to find that of the fifteen people I asked, nobody believed we were 18 told the whole truth about conflicts. My own view is that the people we pay to represent us should be far more accountable for the truth. It is also possible that this research paper itself may be viewed and deemed as propaganda, which is for the reader to decide. 19 7: Bibliography J.A.C Brown. Techniques of persuasion: from propaganda to brain washing, penguin 1963, ISBN 0140206043, 303.38 D. Welch. Propaganda and the German cinema 1933-1945, Oxford U.P, 1985 ISBN 0198219741, 791.430943 D. Birt. Something to sell: propaganda, Longman, 1978, ISBN 05823981, 302.2 L.A.Monk. Britain 1945-1970, G. Bell & sons Ltd, 1976, ISBN 0713518979, 941.85 The Chambers dictionary, Chambers Harrup publishers Ltd, 2001, ISBN 0550100083 Http://www.btinternet.com/~rrnotes/psywarsoc/fleaf/gulfapp.htm Http://www.nara.gov/exhall/powers/powers.htm http://www.ucsc.edu/currants/terroristcrisis/propaganda.htm 20 Contents 1: Propaganda and war (introduction) Page 1 1:2 The meaning of propaganda Page 2 1:3 Elements of propaganda Page 2 1:4 Preparing a nation Page 4 1:5 Four levels of propaganda Page 5 1:6 The positive and the negative Page 6 2: The Gulf war Page 10 2:1 Media and Iraq Page 12 3: The Kosovo conflict Page 13 3:1 Claims that are not verified Page 14 4: The first world war Page 16 4:1 Anti German propaganda Page 17 5: Questions to today’s public Page 17 6: Conclusion Page 18 7: Bibliography Page 20 Abstract “ When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty” –Arthur Ponsoby, British diplomat and author. Research Paper Access 2001 Propaganda and war By Giles Ward-Best