[iwar] [fc:'Missing.in.Action']

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-22 07:03:13
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 07:03:13 -0700 (PDT)
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'Missing in Action'
It met with resounding success in Iraq but, writes <b>Galal
Nassar</b>, Washington's attempts to stage-direct its current war in
Afghanistan does not appear to be working

Al-Ahram Weekly Online
18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
<a href="http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/556/4war.htm" eudora="autourl">http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/556/4war.htm

Shortly after the US launched its assault on Afghanistan, the Bush
administration and the National Security Council took stock of the fact
that an important weapon in its offensive arsenal could no longer be
used as effectively as it had in America's previous military
engagements: the media.  Media strategy before, during and after
operations has become an integral component of military planning. 

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice recently issued a bulletin
urging American news organisations to exercise caution in relaying the
statements issued by the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida leaders on the grounds
that these statements could contain instructions to their followers
outside Afghanistan, some of whom may be residing in the US, to
undertake acts of sabotage against US interests and citizens.  CNN and
other television networks have complied and are now scrutinising
statements with Rice's exhortation in mind. 

It is difficult to credit American security concerns as the primary
impetus behind Rice's instructions.  From day one of the invasion, US
strategists feared for the success of their campaign, not because the
Taliban or Al-Qa'ida possess any military or technological advantages,
but because they possess the most powerful counter-offensive weapon:
again, the media.  Osama Bin Laden knows better than to let the US
stage-direct the war in Afghanistan as it did with the Gulf War, when
the US media was subjected to the tightest censorship in modern history. 
It is only from subsequent independent reports, such as that of former
US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, that we can discover the true
magnitude of the devastation US weapons wreaked on Iraq. 

According to the Clark's investigation, some 88,000 tons of explosives
were dropped on Iraq by 1,760 American and allied warplanes.  Iraq's
nuclear, biological and weapons programmes were not, as the Pentagon
briefing stated, destroyed by precision bombing.  In fact, during the
war, only minimal damage to these facilities was observed.  What the
media war did not cover, according to the report, is the fact that
nearly 170,000 Iraqi children died as the result of the devastation of
the country's infrastructure.  The United States military destroyed much
of Iraq's power, water and sewage installations, and thus created a
breeding ground for such diseases as cholera.  The US assault left Iraq
in a near apocalyptic condition, as the first United Nations observers
reported after the war. 

In <i>The Censored War</i>, G Roeder observes that in wartime, "News and
media become strategic commodities -- as subject to rationing as other
essential items, and sometimes scarcer." US Secretary of State Colin
Powell and other US strategists would certainly subscribe to this
belief.  During the Gulf War, Powell was reported to have told one of
his soldiers, "Once you've taken care of all the military issues, then
worry about television, because you can win the battle and lose the war
through television."

Officials' wariness of the media was inculcated through bitter
experiences of the Vietnam War.  By the time the Vietnam War broke out,
television had become the American public's primary source of news and
information, making Vietnam America's first "living room war," as
Michael Arlen dubbed it in his book of the same title.  Arlen also
described Vietnam as America's "least successful" war, less because of
the outcome of the war than because of the impact media coverage had on
the American consciousness.  Henceforward, US military leaders and the
occupant of the Oval Office would remember that "a war which was
screened nightly on television could not be won."

Such was the power of television during Vietnam that President Nixon
wondered in his memoirs, published in 1978, "whether America would ever
again be able to fight an enemy abroad with unity and strength of
purpose at home." Echoing such apprehensions bred by the American
experience, the British journalist, Roby Day, asked whether, in the
future, "a democracy which has uninhibited television coverage in every
home will ever be able to fight a war, however just.  ...  The full
brutality of the combat will be there in close-up and full colour, and
blood looks very red on the colour television screen."

The issue has become a prime Pentagon obsession.  In <i>The Media
War</i>, Everette Dennis wrote: "Since Vietnam, when the military,
through its conduct of the war, had been impaired by negative media
coverage, people in the Pentagon had been simmering, planning and
talking.  In sessions there, and in the war and naval colleges, the
issue of handling the media was widely discussed and carefully
understood." This reaction resides at the crux of what is called as
America's "Vietnam syndrome".  It is essential to understanding how the
US has conducted all subsequent military operations, from the Gulf War
to Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo.  As the Clark investigation, cited
above, illustrates, these engagements were characterised by a tightly
planned media strategy that ensured a vast discrepancy between what
actually took place in the theatre of operations and the images and
information that were broadcast to the public.  The phenomenon has
become known in political and media sciences as "media war", which
Professor Phillip M Taylor of the University of Leeds distinguishes from
"real war" as follows:

"Real war is about the sounds, sight, smell, touch and taste of the
nasty, brutal business of people.  It frightens and appalls most people,
so much so that they would be repelled by its reality.  Media war,
however, is literally a mediated event, which draws on that reality, but
which, in and of itself, is confined to merely an audio-visual, and,
therefore, inherently de-sensitising, representation of it."

But, media war is also very much about controlling the flow of
information.  During the Gulf War, Pentagon and CIA officers resorted to
dozens of regulations and bureaucratic obstacles to hamper the work of
the more than 1,500 war correspondents who were in Saudi Arabia to cover
the war.  Perhaps the most notorious stratagem for controlling access to
information was the so-called news-pool system devised by Pentagon
public relations officials.  According to one description of this
system, "The luckiest, or the best-connected, were allocated a place
with one of the media reporting teams.  Under close supervision by
American military public affairs officers (PROs) they were allowed
access to the troops encamped in the desert."

In addition, the Pentagon actively prohibited the taking of live
independent footage of its aerial strikes against Iraqi infrastructure
and civilians.  Taking advantage of the fact that there was no room for
journalists or cameramen on F-15s, B-2s or B- 52s and that no cameras
monitor the movement of cruise missiles to record the destruction they
leave in their wake, US public opinion was exposed to a very expurgated
version of the bombing of Iraq.  Footage released by the Pentagon may
have shown flashes in the night sky or a remotely guided missile
smashing through the window of a purportedly uninhabited building, but
viewers were not exposed to scenes of carnage or the rubble of decimated
buildings. 

Saddam Hussein, too, was aware of the power of Vietnam syndrome and
sought to turn it to his own advantage.  The assault on Iraq, he
wagered, could not withstand the pressure of public opinion, and on this
premise he allowed CNN newscaster Peter Arnett to remain in Iraq to film
and report on the bombardment of Baghdad and Basra.  This was the first
time in history that a country at war permitted a television reporter
from a hostile power to cover developments inside that country.  Arnett
severely rattled international and American public opinion with his
report on the bombing of the Fardous bomb shelter, in Al-Amriya, which
resulted in the death of at least 400 Iraqi civilians.  Following the
report, Arnett was accused of broadcasting Iraqi propaganda and his
coverage was curtailed for the remainder of the war. 

Following Saddam's lead, Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic also allowed
CNN news teams to remain in Belgrade to cover the war in the Balkans. 
By now, however, US media war strategists were better prepared to
counter the effect on public opinion. 

Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban have adopted an entirely new strategy. 
Rather than trying to compete on the home ground of Western-based media
networks, they have succeeded in forcing other networks to compete with
the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, one of the most widely viewed Arabic
satellite channels.  The Taliban have granted virtually exclusive
permission to cover the war in Afghanistan to Al-Jazeera, making it the
prime source for information on developments inside Afghanistan. 
Al-Jazeera is also functioning as Bin Laden's microphone to the world
and now US and Western media are scrambling for permission to broadcast
Al-Jazeera's reportage. 

As more and more viewers are turning to the Arab satellite station for
daily reports, Taliban communiqués, and confirmation of numbers dead, US
National Security Agency strategists are in a panic, only too aware of
how such information feeds the tide of international opinion opposing
attacks against civilians and the retaliatory motives behind the
operation. 

As the US strikes entered their second week, one feels as though they
are following a protracted wrestling match between US forces and Bin
Laden, in which Bin Laden is now several points ahead.  Not only have
the strikes so far failed to achieve any of their political or military
objectives, they have cast a longer shadow over the US's tarnished
image.  Aware of the power of the US media, Bin Laden has put into
effect a media strategy that has undermined the efficacy of the most
important weapon in America's offensive arsenal.  His pre-filmed speech
was prepared to be broadcast immediately after Bush's address to the
nation, and the broadcasts of his followers' subsequent speeches and the
televised images of civilian casualties in Afghanistan have enabled him
to influence global opinion in a way Saddam Hussein and Milosevic never
did. 

Needless to say, now that it has its US media services under control,
Washington is casting about for ways to pressure Qatar to undermine Bin
Laden's strategy and impose a form of blackout on the humanitarian
consequences of the strikes.  Until it succeeds, Bin Laden and the
Taliban will probably continue to score more points in the current media
war. 


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Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:US.special.forces.kill.20.in.fierce.Afghan.firefight]"
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