Neiwert on PsyOps and the Toppling of Saddam’s Statue
Dave Neiwert of Orcinus rambles interestingly on the subject of the way the US military staged the toppling of Saddam’s statue at the climax of the Iraq war (er, of the Major Combat Operations Phase of the Iraqi Freedom Campaign of the Global War on Terror), and how the pseudo-event was intended to mold the opinions of both Iraqis and US citizens: The psychological combat field.
We have in fact known from even before the outset that the war against Iraq would prominently feature psychological warfare. Most people have assumed that this warfare would be directed against the enemy and the subject citizens. They have not stopped to consider that, by definition, it would also be directed toward the American public as well.
July 11th, 2004 at 8:52 pm
Shocking…US PsyOps have either publicized, created or spun some events and communications to affect Iraqis and bolster the US public in the war effort. Clearly, this brand-new way of influencing military opponents and public opinion would certainly have had some dramatic affect if it had been around for other wars throughout history!! But lets give it a catchy name while we’re marvelling at this new creation. How about “war propaganda”? But hey, that’s just my meager offering. Maybe someone else has a snappier name!
Let’s not shortchange our opponents though, and let the US take all the glory (or distain, as the case may be here). The whole kidnapping and beheading thing has certainly taken the PsyOps process to another level!
And on a slightly less sarcastic note, I’m always amazed at the persistance of the thought (perpetuated again in this article) that mainstream media has been “hijacked” into portraying “Bush’s view” of the war. Ummm, okay, maybe if “mainstream” is defined as Fox News exclusively. I don’t recall much “happy, happy, joy, joy” talk coming from the mouths of Jennings and Rather anytime in the last year or so, regarding the war. Nor coming from Time, Newsweek or CNN.
July 12th, 2004 at 10:42 am
I don’t think sarcasm really contributes to the discussion in any meaningful way. I mean, I’ve engaged in it plenty myself, and I’m not suggesting you don’t have every right to do so here if you choose to. But I’m left a little disappointed to see you, in particular, choosing to.
I think that’s because I genuinely value having access to your thinking on this stuff, and it’s more useful to me when it’s delivered straight-up. When you limit yourself to snarky stuff like you posted here, it’s harder for me figure out what you’re really saying. For example, I’ll willingly grant that propaganda aimed at the domestic audience is commonplace during wartime. But to me, that doesn’t make it insignificant, and doesn’t make it wrong to point it out when it happens.
Politicans have an interest in manipulating the electorate’s views via false and misleading stories about war (among other things), and they routinely do that, obviously. But the electorate has an interest in combatting those efforts, informing themselves as best they can about the underlying truths in order to exercise their franchise wisely. Don’t they?
It wasn’t just Fox News that ran pictures of cheering Iraqis as the Saddam statue was toppled. Those images were shown repeatedly by every mainstream news outlet. Now, it certainly isn’t news for anyone who followed the debunking of those images on the net that the event was manufactured by the US military. We’ve known since shortly after the event that US armored vehicles blocked off the entrances to the plaza and pulled down the statue, members of Chalabi’s recently-flown-in exile group were among the Iraqis shown cheering, and wide shots showed that the crowd was actually pretty small.
Still, it’s worth noticing, I think, that more detail has now emerged, with a US Army report on the war describing specifically who staged the event and how they did so. No, it’s not shocking news for me, or you. But it would be shocking for a lot of people in this country, I think, if they were exposed to it. So for me, that makes it interesting, and post-worthy.
July 12th, 2004 at 8:08 pm
The underlying message to my comments was that this is not a new revelation of “manipulated messaging” during wartime, and it certainly isn’t the invention of the evil US military. I remember watching the event live at the time and at one point, the cameras showed a long shot of the entire square. It showed a small pocket of Iraqi celebraters gathered around an almost equally-sized press corps. Not exactly Times Square on V-J Day.
But this isn’t anything surprising or new about how the press can make events bigger in scale than reality. There have been stories of Iraqis dancing and mugging for cameras around the latest burnt military convoy truck, in which the small number of “participants” are equalled or overwhelmed by the photo/video press capturing the action.
So my point is to not make out a partly or fully staged event as some specific indictment of the US military turning its PsyOps powers onto its own people. This kind of thing has been going on in one form or another in countless countries, during countless conflicts, over countless years.
As I mentioned in my first post, there are others in this conflict doing a much more stark and brutal job of mental manipulation through the use of the media.
If we are going to call out the use of actions or events meant to purposely influence the emotions of others, let’s do so for all who engage in it.
So, the defense of the idea of a hijacked mainstream media is that the major networks all ran the video of the toppling of Saddam’s statue over a year ago? Let’s keep in mind that the accusations are that the press/media have been, and still are, mere puppets to do the bidding of the Bush Administration. Have any of these people actually read or heard the media coverage that Bush and the war has been getting?
If that is sinister manipulation being done by Bush, I haven’t since such an inept evil genius since Boris and Natashia from the old Bullwinkle series!
July 12th, 2004 at 9:54 pm
Thanks for the straight dope.
I think the view you’re reacting to may be different from the one I hold about what this story signifies, and the one Dave Neiwert holds about what this story signifies. Not that that makes your point invalid.
July 13th, 2004 at 2:47 pm
It seems that your view and Dave Neiwert’s is that these key staged events are part of Bush’s attempt to delude the US public in the progress and popularity of the war via media control.
My take is this: the statue toppling and media coordination was likely as much, if not more, the doing of the military (PsyOps or whoever)than it was a political scheme. The military has its own internal directives and mechanisms to play up significant events or positive actions during a war or military mission. Always have and always will.
And yes, the Bush Administration has created some media events like the carrier landing, or played up events like the official hand-over of power to Iraq. My response is, “So what?” Any Administration, foreign or domestic, has tried to put positive spins and feel-good moments on wartime activities, throughout history. What would you expect them to do? These events may either reverse a negative trend in public opinion, provide a fleeting bounce upward, or have no effect at all. For those of us lucky enough to live in a democracy (yes, we still live in one), the proof is in the day-by-day-by-day grind of the reality of war and its progress (and how that reality is presented to the public).
In that regard, I think its safe to say that the news, and how it is portrayed as a whole, up to this point, is often more bad than good for Bush. For the few days that the media has been “hijacked” by Bush with some specific “Mile Marker” events, the overwhelming amount of time has been spent by the media pounding some pretty negative images and storylines (justified or not). The President’s approval ratings should be proof enough of just who has control of the public minds on this issue.
So the whole hypothesis that all these propogandist events are cooked up by the Bush Administration and are continually force-fed to the mindless masses by a gullible and all-too-willing mainstream media, just can’t stand up to the test of reality.
July 13th, 2004 at 6:01 pm
You sound like someone who needs a vacation. Which I mean in a completely friendly way. :-)
July 14th, 2004 at 6:20 am
In fact, I am looking forward to a week’s vacation next month!
I just have a hot button when people try to rationalize a “hijacked media” theory that says that the Bush evildoers have succeeded in giving the public a false positive view of things, when reality proves otherwise. A couple of media events does not equal a subservient press!