In a recent online conversation with fellow Kossack
SaraBeth, my intrepid friend found an interesting tidbit relating to the first Gulf War that provides a stark perspective on our current fiasco, as well as the information hole that appears to be carefully crafted control (C3?) of the media.
It had not consciously occurred to me that so much of the prior Gulf War had prepared the current Bush Administration so well for controlling the message and the information. SaraBeth directed me to an article on the San Francisco Chronicle website sfgate that quickly and thoroughly exposed some startling - and disturbing - comparisons.
More below the fold.
The current "state of the media" has been deteriorating for years, but the blatant control and manhandling has never been so apparent as it has become during the tenure of George W. Bush. The media, in many instances, has degenerated into almost a pop-culture rag.
Almost.
With regard to the current "War on Terror" and the Iraq insurgency, control of the media has been fairly well coordinated - to the point that anyone interested in reading about the state of the insurgency must go outside of the US Media. The coordination and control of the media - effectively managed by embedding them within the advancing units, or blowing them up when they got too uppity - wasn't something that came to BushCo and the Pentagon overnight. Indeed, it came at the cost much political capital during the reign of GHW Bush.
Two factors that hit home during the first (failed) imperial Presidency and dashed the hopes of a second term are, oddly, some of the most tightly controlled areas information now: the number of Iraq casualties (civilian and otherwise), and images of US casualties.
"...the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."
Elie Wiesel, Oct. 1986
That's just the last bit of the quote from Elie, but it's relevant to the impact that visual images and actual numbers have on the public vs. the people in either Bush administration. It also hints at the solution that Bush the Elder's people implemented, and perfected (almost) for Bush the Younger. Hide the grisly realities (bury the dead, and a few of the living, and deny the media), and what the public doesn't know won't hurt them (with "them" being the Bushites).
And it was very effective, if not horrifying in execution.
War without death
The Pentagon promotes a vision of combat as bloodless and antiseptic
by Patrick J. Sloyan, Sunday, November 17, 2002
Leon Daniel, like others who reported from Vietnam during the 1960s, knew about war and death. So he was puzzled by the lack of corpses at the tip of the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Feb. 25, 1991.
Clearly there had been plenty of killing. The 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) had smashed through the defensive front line of Saddam Hussein's army the day before, Feb. 24, the opening of the Desert Storm ground war to retake Kuwait. Daniel, representing United Press International, was part of a press pool held back from witnessing the assault on 8,000 Iraqi defenders.
"They wouldn't let us see anything," said Daniel, who had seen about everything as a combat correspondent.
A two-pronged attack. Control the access of the press, and hide the evidence of the carnage.
It wasn't until late in the afternoon of Feb. 25 that the press pool was permitted to see where the attack occurred. There were groups of Iraqi prisoners. About 2,000 had surrendered. But there were no bodies, no stench of feces, no blood stains, no bits of human beings.
"You get a little firefight in Vietnam and the bodies would be stacked up like cordwood," Daniel said. Finally, Daniel found the division public affairs officer, an Army major.
"Where the hell are all the bodies?" Daniel said.
"What bodies?" the officer replied.
"What bodies? Nothing to see here. Move along."
A simple response, "What bodies?", implying that either there aren't any, or that there are plenty of options - what was the precise question again? The art of deception and deflection had always been a hefty political and propaganda tool, helping to control the perceptions of those who could substantially inform the masses. It was well practiced then; it's been perfected now. But I digress...
Daniel and the rest of the world would not find out until months later why the dead had vanished. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers, some of them alive and firing their weapons from World War I-style trenches, were buried by plows mounted on Abrams battle tanks. The Abrams flanked the trench lines so that tons of sand from the plows funneled into the trenches. Just behind the tanks, actually straddling the trench line, came Bradleys pumping 7.62mm machine gun bullets into the Iraqi troops.
"I came through right after the lead company," said Army Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the lead brigade during the 1st Mech's assault. "What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people's arms and land things sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands."
Thousands. Buried and bulldozed. Niiiiice.
One reason there was no trace of what happened in the Neutral Zone on those two days was that Armored Combat Earth Movers came behind the armored burial brigade, leveling the ground and smoothing away projecting Iraqi arms, legs and equipment.
So, this would be the Iraqi equivalent of "The Killing Fields", only on a much smaller scale. Just performed with a more practiced cold and calculating precision. "Burying the dead" just took on a whole new shade of meaning.
What happened at the Neutral Zone that day has become a metaphor for the conduct of modern warfare. While political leaders bask in voter approval for destroying designated enemies, they are increasingly determined to mask the reality of warfare that causes voters to recoil.
Read that first line again, `cuz there may be a quiz on it later. What happened at the Neutral Zone that day has become a metaphor for the conduct of modern warfare. The current Bush regime knows that metaphor - perhaps one of the very few metaphors George Jr. is aware of. Now re-read the last bit: they are increasingly determined to mask the reality of warfare that causes voters to recoil.
Burying the dead, indeed.
BAD PRESS
The elder Bush was badly stung by the reality of warfare while president. After the 1989 American invasion of Panama -- where reporters were also blocked from witnessing a brief slaughter in Panama City -- Bush held a White House news conference to boast about the dramatic assault on the Central American leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega.
Bush was chipper and wisecracking with reporters when two major networks shifted coverage to the arrival ceremony for American soldiers killed in Panama at the Air Force Base in Dover, Del.
Millions of viewers watched as the network television screens were split: Bush bantering with the press while flag-draped coffins were carried off Air Force planes by honor guards.
Afterward, on Bush's orders, the Pentagon banned future news coverage of honor guard ceremonies for the dead. The ban was continued by President Bill Clinton.
Emphasis mine
Ah...that puts a nice perspective on it. The side-by-side network feeds of Bush joking around - indifferent to the carnage - while our troops were brought home.
"The president was very concerned about casualties," Homer recalled. "Not just our casualties but Iraqi casualties. He was very emphatic. He wanted casualties minimized on both sides. He went around the room and asked each military commander if his orders were understood. We all said we would do our best."
According to Homer, he took a number of steps to limit the use of anti- personnel bombs during more than 30 days of air attacks on Iraqi army positions. Schwarzkopf's psychological warfare experts littered Iraqi troops with leaflets that warned of imminent attacks by B-52 Strategic Bombers.
Now that's intelligent. It's a bit of a two-edged sword, tho - you warn the people that you want to keep the innocent from being hurt, so sometimes (especially in a guerilla campaign), the soldiers you hunt start hiding. In hospitals and schools. In high-traffic public places. Places they think you won't bomb.
But that wasn't what Bush the Elder was concerned with. At least, that wasn't how his orders were translated back to the Pentagon.
But Bush's Camp David orders were also translated into minimizing the perception -- if not the reality -- of Desert Storm casualties.
Where did this perspective on the "minimizing casualties" command come from? Where did the spin happen - at the top, or along the lines of communication, or within the rank and file of the troops themselves?
Hmmmm....
The president's point man for controlling these perceptions was Dick Cheney, then secretary of Defense. And to Cheney, that meant controlling the press, which he saw as a collective voice that portrayed the Pentagon as a can't-do agency that wasted too much money and routinely failed in its mission.
"I did not look on the press as an asset," Cheney said in an interview after Desert Storm. He was interviewed by the authors of a Freedom Forum book, "America's Team -- The Odd Couple," which explored the relationship between the media and the Defense Department.
Cheney...Dick Cheney. Where have I heard that name before?
To Cheney, containing the military was his way of protecting the Pentagon's credibility. "Frankly, I looked on it as a problem to be managed," Cheney said of the media.
A problem to be managed.
Perception management. Looking good => credibility. Ah, just like the Billy Crystal "You look MAH-velous" routine, only applied to the real world that Crystal was poking fun at.
A very unfortunate truism of the day, both then and now.
So, where did this inexorably lead?
CONTROL OF INFORMATION
This management had two key ingredients: Control the flow of information through high level briefings while impeding reporters such as Leon Daniel. According to Cheney, he and Army Gen. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, orchestrated the briefings because "the information function was extraordinarily important. I did not have a lot of confidence that I could leave that to the press."
Ah - the birth of the first WH Briefing dance. Our own version of
Baghdad Bob in the making. It would take thirty or so years to get to the point where we have such an entertaining edition called "The Scotty Show" by dKos correspondent
karateexplosions, but as we all know, these things take practice.
And control of the key media outlets.
But again, I digress. Read on, intrepid Kosmopolitan, to glean the results of this lesson upon Operation Desert Storm.
In manipulating the first and often most lasting perception of Desert Storm, the Bush administration produced not a single picture or video of anyone being killed. This sanitized, bloodless presentation by military briefers left the world presuming Desert Storm was a war without death.
That image was reinforced by limitations imposed on reporters on the battlefield. Under rules developed by Cheney and Powell, journalists were not allowed to move without military escorts. All interviews had to be monitored by military public affairs escorts. Every line of copy, every still photograph, every strip of film had to be approved -- censored -- before being filed. And these rules were ruthlessly enforced.
Ruthlessly. Good word. And Powell. Gee, another name that rings a bell...
As the ground war began, Cheney declared a press blackout, effectively blocking distribution of battlefield press reports. While Cheney's action was challenged by Marlin Fitzwater, the White House press secretary, the ban remained in effect. Most news accounts were delayed for days, long enough to make them worthless to their editors.
Accounts of Iraqi troops escaping from Kuwait -- the carnage on the so- called Highway of Death -- were recorded by journalists operating outside the pool system.
Schwarzkopf repeatedly brushed off questions about the Iraqi death toll when the ground war ended in early March. Not until 2000, during a television broadcast, would he estimate Iraq losses in the tens of thousands. The only precise estimate came from Cheney. In a formal report to Congress, Cheney said U.S. soldiers found only 457 Iraqi bodies on the battlefield.
To Cheney, who helped Bush's approval rating soar off the charts during Desert Storm, the press coverage had been flawless. "The best-covered war ever, " Cheney said. "The American people saw up close with their own eyes through the magic of television what the U.S. military was capable of doing."
"The best-covered war ever" indeed. Until Junior took office, with his father's own "Tricky Dick" and the experience gleaned from both Cheney and Powell's earlier experience with spin control and "media management".
The exposure of this article, and the eerie tie-ins to the current Bush regime, helps bring home the absolute certainty that the current Administration isn't just incompetent, and it isn't just intentionally breaking the law while lying to citizens and the world. The article does a great job of pointing those out, no doubt. Definitely worth sharing, and ensuring that people have it available in context. While I've quoted it, piecemeal, almost entirely, I recommend folks follow the link the article title to read the whole thing.
But what I garnered from it was a question that, for me, was far more ominous.
Way back, at the top of the article, where the outtakes quote the manner and method that Iraqui troops were literally plowed under - some of whom were apparently still alive, it occurred to me that the media has been reporting discoveries of mass graves that "Saddam" used for those he murdered.
What chance, in part of the spin control and revisionist history that has become part and parcel of this Bush Administration's very essence, is the possibility that some of these newly discovered graves are not evidence of Saddam's callous disregard for life, but of the intrinsic and apparently genetically embedded indifference characteristic of the Bush dynasty?