Something about crisis — war in particular — causes large numbers of people to shut off the rational, skeptical part of their brains and crank up the sensitivity of the emotional part.
A recent poll published in the Christian Science Monitor proves the point. It shows that days before the start of war with Iraq, almost half of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was a driving force behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — in the words of the pollsters, he was “personally involved.” About the same number believed that some or all of the hijackers were Iraqis.
Both are misconceptions. None of the hijackers were Iraqis. New evidence suggests Hussein might have tolerated the presence of a few Al Qaeda on his turf, but he and Osama bin Laden see eye-to-eye about as often as George Bush and Michael Moore. Their only real link is a hatred for the United States. But for half of the wartime public, which has listened to President Bush give countless speeches mentioning Sept. 11, 2001 and Hussein in the same breath, that’s close enough.
Which half of the public? The only one Bush is cunning enough to fool: the dumbest common denominator.
He isn’t partaking in anything novel: playing to the dumbest common denominator is the norm in wartime rhetoric. The American government portrayed the Germans as the Hun scourge in World War I. The Nazi government blamed the problems of Germany on the Jews, the Poles, the French, the non-Aryans and probably the Canadians too once they entered the war. Even the current Iraqi regime, whoever is running it, is linking the American invasion to some worldwide Zionist conspiracy, playing to Muslim emotion.
But Americans like to think of themselves as somehow above falling for government propaganda, that mindless atrocities like the Holocaust could never happen here. They’re probably right. I want to believe that Americans do possess what Hemingway called “a built-in bullshit detector.” But this detector seems to break down among many during times of crisis; perhaps it’s a matter of system overload.
For example: After some apparent setbacks in the ground campaign, Bush Administration officials quickly took the defensive and said they knew this was not going to be easy — but all is going according to plan. Compare this with comments when the administration was trying to sell the war publicly. Presidential adviser Kenneth Adelman wrote a Washington Post editorial predicting a “cakewalk.” Vice President Dick Cheney, in an appearance on “Meet the Press” just weeks before the conflict erupted, predicted that most Iraqi soldiers would “step aside” and that the Americans would be hailed as liberators.
Or take Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s promise that the war would be “unlike any we have ever seen.” Aerial bombings, stretched supply lines, field generals complaining about a lack of troops, soldiers in the horrifying position of being unable to differentiate between civilians and combatants, guerrilla warfare by the enemy … we’ve seen this kind of war before, Mr. Rumsfeld. It took place 35 years ago in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
This idea of the enemy “not fighting fair” is a theme that recurs throughout Pentagon and Bush Administration press briefings. I will agree that their tactics are disgusting, showing a complete disregard for human life. But what, exactly, did we expect? These Iraqi guerrillas are fighting against an enemy they perceive is coming to conquer their homeland, an enemy so overwhelmingly powerful they could not possibly survive in open combat. The British made the same claims of the enemy “not fighting fair” during the American Revolution.
And then there is the question of the true threat to America. Bush said it was with the aim to liberate the Iraqi people (an honorable one) and eliminate “weapons of mass destruction,” characterized as biological, chemical or nuclear — a dubious definition at best. According to Bush, a few spores of anthrax could represent a weapon of mass destruction, while the 5,000 pound bombs dropped by our warplanes do not. It’s an interesting calculus, to say the least.
To show the awful consequences of chemical weapons, the Pentagon aired an interview with a Kurdish woman whose village was victimized by a chemical weapon attack in 1988. The images are compelling, her voice painful to hear. Of course, Pentagon spokespeople did not mention that the United States supported the Hussein regime at the time of the attack.
The duplicity is rampant on both sides, and in some ways it is necessary; admitting any chinks in the armor of righteousness may only encourage the enemy to fight harder. In this respect, perhaps Peter Arnett deserved to be fired from NBC for giving an interview to Iraqi TV that pointed out setbacks in the American war effort.
But that doesn’t mean his analysis was wrong. He just maintained a fully functional bullshit detector in time of war — something half of all Americans put away weeks ago — and the poor judgment to let the enemy see it.
Matt Lynch ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in English and political science.
