PROPAGANDA

This week's big media story is the issue of Americans planting news stories in Iraqi newspapers. Yesterday, officials at the Pentagon admitted that they were, in fact, using a P.R. firm in Washington to translate articles written by soldiers into Arabic and then placing them into local papers in Iraq. There is still some question as to whether or not the placement of these stories without properly stating that they were paid advertisements, rather than legitimate news stories generated by the paper's own staff, was done at the Pentagon's direction. I suspect the operation was done with the complete approval of folks at the Pentagon (including the payments to Iraqi journalists). Why? Because they want to win the war, and propaganda is a vital part of warmaking in the modern era.

Can you imagine fighting World War II without propaganda (and censorship, for that matter). Clearly, the Vietnam War gives us a prime example of what happens when the U.S. (or any free society, I would imagine) tries to fight a tough, brutal war without propagandizing its people. In fact, while the people on the homefront in WWII were being fed a steady diet of propaganda designed specifically to keep up their morale, during Vietnam (and now, Iraq) the people were being fed a steady diet of propaganda designed specifically to shatter their morale.

Propaganda, you ask? Isn't what the MSM did during Vietnam and what they are doing now in Iraq simply reporting the news in a clear and objective manner? Those of you who are laughing at this point know what is coming next. Every news outlet makes editorial decisions every day, none more important than what stories to cover and what stories to ignore. After all, every media outlet has a limited staff and limited space or time to devote to news. Therefore, the coverage of the war is, by necessity, going to be limited to a slice of the conflict. In WWII that slice was whatever the U.S. and Allied militaries and governments chose to allow. They were the true editors of war news. In Vietnam (and now, Iraq) the editors of the newspapers and the producers of the network broadcasts are the arbiters of what does, or does not, get covered. The WWII military editors were driven by one thing...victory. The Vietnam editors, and their contemporary counterparts, are driven by a variety of motives, depending on the editor and his or her employers. Clearly, most editors, producers and reporters are left-of-center ideologically in the MSM (just look at the few polls that have been done, or ask anyone..like me...who has worked at these institutions). Therefore, they are going to look more critically at any decision of a right-of-center President. More importantly, though, they are driven by the desire to obtain a bigger audience for their product. Bad news sells better than good news. We are more concerned with the one plane that crashes than the 2,000 planes that landed safely. We are more concerned with the one patrol that gets ambushed than the hundreds of patrols that went without incident.

The cumulative result of all of this is what we are seeing today, and saw during Vietnam. A steady drumbeat of reporting about U.S. and Iraqi casualties, suicide bombers, kidnappers and beheaders, Shiite death squads, torture, and assorted other stories of mayhem and destruction. In WWII, if there had been no censorship or propaganda, the public would have been fed a similar diet. In 1942 alone, the U.S. and its allies suffered disaster after disaster, oftentimes due to the incompetence of Allied leaders. Even when we were winning, mistakes were made and lives lost. Only because Americans were shielded from the worst of this did morale remain relatively high on the homefront.

I am afraid that the Iraq War will be won or lost on the homefront, even more so than on the battlefield, or in the battle for Iraqi 'hearts and minds'. The only bulwark against defeat at the moment is the determination and stubbornness of one man...George W. Bush. Even as the public turns against him, he continues to wage this war. Even as his political allies grow faint-hearted, he continues to wage this war. I predict that even if his party loses the House and Senate in November of 2006, he will continue to wage this war. After watching his most recent speech, I am convinced that he will be stopped by nothing short of victory, or the end of his term in office.