"By glorifying past wars
and preparing for future wars, society reinforces this mindset. War is even welcomed, for it
allows individuals to project inner hatreds, displace aggression, find a transcendental
purpose in life, and achieve a sense of belonging in a group."
-- Lawrence LaShane -
The Psychology of War
Notably missing from Western television reports on the war in Iraq were the pictures of wounded and dead Iraqis. It has been estimated that over a million Iraqis have been killed per the report in The Lancet (the exact numbers are disputed and we may never know for sure) and likewise, we don't know the number of Iraqis who died during the first days (costs of war) of the so-called "shock and awe" campaign?
| "The number is shocking and sobering...It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. ...That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then." (JustForeignPolicy.Org) |
|
"Like the Gulf of Tonkin lie in 1964 and the baby incubator fabrication in 1990, the weapons of mass destruction fiasco is a reminder of the lengths Western governments will go to in order to incite their populations to war...Despite John Howard's claim that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons capable of "causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale", no evidence of their existence has been found by occupying armies searching for them." (Scott Burchill lectures in international relations at Deakin University, " WMD spin shows what leaders will do to take people to war" - July 15 2003 - TheAge.Com.Au)
There were also over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers killed by allied forces in the First Gulf War, most of them on the "Highway of Death". Would support for the war be as high as it was if the horrible truth about war had been told by independent journalists? Most people were getting their news from those embedded journalist cheerleaders who are now again reporting from military units so it was no wonder this kind of reporting sounds and seems more like a sporting event than a war.
"An impromptu news conference by Iraqi information minister Al Sahaf, held in one of the destroyed "bunkers" in Baghdad was unexpectedly cut from live broadcast by CNN because of "faulty translation." Al Sahaf claimed the devastated building was a hospitality residence housing foreign dignitaries like Nelson Mandela and not a military bunker. CNN promised to return to the Al Sahaf broadcast. That did not materialize. The real reason CNN cut the broadcast was because Al Sahaf launched a verbal barrage against Bush and U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld calling them "bastardized criminals who must be hit on the head by the boot." [Firas Al-Atraqchi, YellowTimes.Org - "Sparing the public the horrors of war" (March 22, 2003)
The Guardian (March 21, 2003) reminds us that "Shock and Awe" has always been U.S. policy for projecting power. The Guardian says, the old military symbol of military might was the B-52 bomber. Now it is the Tomahawk missile.
"The new symbol is 21 inches in diameter, 18ft long, weighs 2,650lbs, has a range of 690 miles, costs $600,000 and is packed with circuit boards manufactured at a secret facility run by Raytheon, the defence contractor, outside Phoenix, Arizona. Since its debut, claims of its accuracy - it is now capable, the air force says, of guiding itself past obstacles and around corners to within 7m of a pre-programmed target - have prompted breathlessness among the media. It can hit "a target the size of a mailbox with almost as much accuracy as the postal service," Fortune magazine declared, as early as 1990." (Guardian.Co.Uk)
"The missiles have thus come to serve a twin political purpose, allowing political leaders in the US - and the UK, which purchased its first shipment of 65 Tomahawks in 1995 - to declare that they are intent on minimizing both military losses and civilian casualties. But as news of the civilian devastation of the first Gulf war began to trickle in, Tomahawk was widely condemned as having failed the second test. Early navy claims of 80% effectiveness, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported, were based on a novel definition of a successful missile launch: one in which the missile had not become stuck in its launcher. What or whom it hit, it turned out, had not entered the calculation." (ibid)
Sending Tomahawk missiles against Baghdad and claiming they were intended to minimize casualties was dishonest black propaganda. Even pinpointing the area along the Tigris and the Palaces and claiming that kind of accuracy will avoid civilian deaths was a lie. No one knows how many civilians were in the palaces or government buildings. Foreign journalists worked out of the Information Ministry offices and many were killed when they didn't leave. And many died when they did because they were targeted by the U.S. with their marvelously "accurate: Tomahawks in the most densely populated areas in Baghdad. Hundreds of civilians were being wounded and maimed for life or killed. Stray "smart" cruise missiles had also in the first couple of days landed in Syria, Turkey and in Iran.
"LeShan, a clinical psychologist and author of Cancer as a Turning Point , argues that wars are an aspect of human behavior. War--widespread, easy to start, difficult to control--he maintains, fulfills psychological needs and eases tensions by creating an alternate reality structure, a binary vision of good versus evil. Like a mythic event, war makes the lives of individual participants more intense and more meaningful, at the same time creating the sense of a collective engaged in a noble enterprise. LeShan's explanations of war's appeal are more convincing than his ideas for calling on psychology and other social sciences to make us less susceptible to warmongering. Educational reforms to foster self-acceptance and government reforms to encourage peace-seeking appear fragile barriers against the powerful forces LeShan describes." (Publishers Weekly)"There are many who believe, that men are sheep; there are others who believe that men are wolves. Both sides can muster good arguments for their positions. Those who propose that men are sheep have only to point to the fact that men are easily influenced to do what they are told, even if it is harmful to themselves; that they have followed their leaders into wars which brought them nothing but destruction; that they have believed any kind of nonsense if it was only presented with sufficient vigor and supported by power--from the harsh threats of priests and kind to the soft voices of the hidden and not-so-hidden persuaders. It seems that the majority of men are suggestible, half-awake children, willing to surrender their will to anyone who speaks with a threatening or sweet enough voice to sway them. Indeed, he who has a conviction strong enough to withstand the opposition of the crowd is the exception rather than the rule, an exception often admired centuries later, mostly laughed at by his contemporaries." (Erich Fromm, War Within Man)
Claiming the U.S. has humanitarian concerns about the taking of innocent lives was, as it has always been, sheer fantasy.
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