Books:

- The First Casualty
Philip Knightley

- Target Iraq: What the news media didn’t tell you
Norman Solomon, Institute for Public Accuracy

- Bodyguard of Lies
Anthony Cave Brown

- Jihad vs McWorld
Benjamin Barber

- War, aggression and Self-defense
Yoram Dinstein, Cambridge University Press

- Law on the battlefield
A.P.V. Rogers, Manchester University Press

Essays:

- The struggle for credibility during the Iraq War
K. Reigert, Institute of Communication, University of Leeds

- US Wars and the CNN factor
Brig. Gen. M. Al-Allaf, National Defense University April 2001

- Media Spin and its impact on public opinion
Dave Pollard, blog.salon.com, May 2004

- Will truth be again the first casualty?
J. Sharkey, Institute of Communication, University of Leeds

- The invasion of Iraq – How the media war was won and lost
David robie, Auckland University of Technology, Pacific Media Watch

- Credible Deception
J. Israel, The Emperor’s New Clothes, 1998

- Manipulating the media
Stephen Badsey, Ministery of Defence

- Why we still need serious journalism
Philip Knightley, City University London 2005

- Speaking with the enemy
Mark Ames, Moscow’s Alternative Weekly, 2005

- Media Study by the Center for the study of Communication
Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts

Websites: (among others)

- Global Issues
http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Articles/PJO.asp

- The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/

- The Week Magazine
www.theweekmagazine.com

- Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032542/site/newsweek

- Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

- The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/

- The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

- Kevin Sites Hotzone
http://hotzone.yahoo.com/

- Accuracy
http://www.accuracy.org/

- Anti-War
http://antiwar.com/

- IWPR
http://www.iwpr.net/iraq_index1.html

- Military Reporters
http://www.militaryreporters.org/

- Accuracy in Media
http://www.aim.org

- Mediamatters
http://mediamatters.org/

- The Conservative Voice
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/

- BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

- Poynter
www.poynter.org

-Iraqi Body Count
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

-National Priorities Center
http://www.costofwar.com/

- Global Security
http://www.globalsecurity.org/

- Various blogs such as:
http://www.tenc.com
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bibliography is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

1 http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/05/25.html
2 http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Manipulation.asp
3 http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Iraq.asp
4 http://www.rantingprofs.com/rantingprofs/2004/10/canwest_v_reute.html
5 http://www.globalsecurity.org/
6 http://www.washingtonpost.com/
7 http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/Research_Publications/Papers/
8 http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/
9 http://struggle.ws/issues/war/gulf_media.html
10 http://poynter.org/contents/
11 IDA report DOD embed programme
12 www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/reporters/hedges/
13 http://newstandardnews.net/
14 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6496898/
15 Jules Crittenden – http://www.poynter.org/content/
16 http://icasualties.org/oif/journalist.aspx
17 http://www.poynter.org/content/
18 PEW http://people-press.org/
19 http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/
20 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040505-5.html
21 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ A41215-2004Aug4.html
22 http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/corporate/ caci_internatonal/
23 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usattacksprisonsciainterrogation
24 3 feb 18, AP
25 http://www.thestar.com/
26 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory
27 http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
28 NY times 28/11/2005

Sources is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

In the introduction of this paper I listed some of the points that I was to take special notice of in my search for signs of spinning. To recapitulate :

- The use of emotional words
- Orwellian misuse of words
- Self-censorship — What is not reported
- The way something is reported
- Oversimplification
- Not presenting opposing interpretations of the facts
- Giving credibility to unidentified and unsubstantiated sources and assuming facts without evidence
- Lying

I found it quite useful and fun to use these criteria in trying to detect spin and examples of propaganda in media sources. They are universal, and most can be applied anywhere, including local newspapers, national news agencies, and magazines. These are the things to look out for in general when listening, reading, or watching news.

Things to look out for in the future regarding developments in Iraq are in my opinion:

- The closing of Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and reactions in the chain of command.
- More examples on film, pictures of Coalition brutality, recent as well as older ones, as well as crimes committed by private contractors.
- Pulling out of Coalition troops as elections in the U.S. and U.K. near, and the escalation of the Iraqi civil war.
- Possible legal procedures against the Bush administration, perhaps even in the International Criminal Court, even though the U.S. government does not recognise it.

I found that just being aware of some cases of spin makes most people more curious and critical of subsequent news articles. For me personally it also meant that I have grown a bit more cynical, and frustrated with the way things are going in the world. Above all, I’ve become more aware of how little most people know, or care, about these vital issues that, contrary to popular belief, involve all of us.

However, I have also noticed how there is a growing awareness in people, mainly in the U.S., that put up more and more resistance. The emergence of the blogosphere is becoming a main weapon in the war agains ignorance, and as long as the Internet is still freely accessible to use for anyone — it’s regulation is another thing to look out for in the near future — we are still able to do background checks, searches on sources, and find opposing viewpoints. In these days when governments are constantly trying to reaffirm their definition of democracy, and what place individuals have in it, it will become more and more important to establish our own personal freedoms and rights. And in order to preserve this, I think we have the duty to stay critical.

What to look out for is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

In my view, a government has got certain powers that its population has given it. When this power is unchecked, it will corrupt. The media is a vital tool to check how authority uses its power, and if the media does not function, the populace loses its grasp on its own government, and with it the grasp on their own rights and lives. I personally believe that the media has a duty to pursue investigative journalism, in order to find out and report about what is going on elsewhere in the world. The need to include extensive backgroun information is especially important in conflicts, including the current one in Iraq that has the potential to spiral out of control and become a danger for the entire world. If the invasion of Iraq was in fact illegal, then we are all guilty of having allowed it. Not just policy makers, not just the media, but all of us.

Even if it doesn’t seem like we live in a democracy at times, we do still live in free countries, with a law system, and a more or less representative government. We have rights, and duties, and I believe that, more often than not, people are inclined to forget about what it means to live in a democracy. Power is too easily given away to our representatives, and as long as there is bread and games, you won’t hear any complaints. But it is not that simple. We, as civilians, have the obligation to know what is going on in our name. If a UN soldier shoots a rebel in Afghanistan, then we should realise that he did so because of us. We should not be lulled into thinking that these affairs have nothing to do with us, because we could very well find that we are the very reason for them in the first place.

The media is a tool for us to inform us about backgrounds, problems, and occurences in order to make us more qualified to make the right decisions and have our governments take action. The media is not a tool for governments to change this information in order to lead us to believe that what is happening is something else, or not happening at all, or happening in our best interest. That is not called information gathering, that is called propaganda.

Like I said in the introduction, spin is the same as propaganda, only slightly more insidious perhaps, and less obvious. But we should remember that it still is propaganda. It just sounds more attractive. We have been living in ‘The Information Age’ now for quite a while, but in the course of this study I have noticed that gradually this is changing into ‘The Misinformation Age’. Not quite a happy thought, and only by being wary, and vigilant, can we make sure that the powers that be might fool others, but not us.

This has been a very hard topic to research. The war in Iraq is still raging, as the insurgents gain in strength, public support in the UK and US is decreasing, and more and more examples of excessive violence by Coalition forces come out in the open. As I have followed the war progressing on TV and in other media, the one thing that I have noticed is that there is a very great deal of information available that we don’t get access to through mainstream media. It takes special effort to find those things that are essential for proper understanding of the world today. I am convinced that I myself, after having dug deep into the subject, still have much more to learn that I already did about this subject, and it shocks me to learn how little the general public knows about conflicts that are being fought in their name. Even though I have tried to somehow conclude this project, it is far from over. I have gotten into the habit of checking sources, obtaining background info, and finding opposing views, and this is something that is becoming more and more important for all of us to do.

Is spin harmful? is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

To understand spin, we must understand modern players, jargon and media source as well. Contemporary media are of course more than just newspapers. Apart from conventional means of news broadcasting like radio, newpapers and television, there is now the Internet that is rapidly making a huge impact on news reporting. Just how much of an impact that is exactly, and what future developments might have in store for us, time will tell and is well worth researching. Certain is that all the major newsoutlets are joining in the technological leaps forward, simply in order to stay in business.

When looking at news, or the media in general, we should always remember that all news agencies are first and foremost in business. News agencies are supposed to be non-attached to any government organisation. It’s preferred that they’re not attached to any other large corporations, in order for the news to be reliable and unbiased. However, this situation also means that revenues have to come from somewhere else; by selling newspapers, or by getting enough viewers on their websites, in order to secure investment using for instance commercial advertisements.

News also has to be presented to the public in an appealing way. Just telling people how things are, in a concise and understandable way, often just not does the trick. It’s the reporter’s job to write in a way that readers will accept whatever it is he is telling them, without losing their attention. Sometimes small news-items have to be blown out of proportion, and sometimes news has to be made out of nothing, just to keep readers buying your paper. Tabloids for instance thrive on sensational articles about scandals and personal issues, arguments and other kinds of sleaze. In the more serious news media, wars and international political and economical problems bring most flavour to its articles. Obviously it’s a vulnerable situation, and one we should be aware of.

With the development of the various media to spread news, speed has been the most important improvement in modern-day newsreporting. Speed, above everything else, has always been vital to journalists in getting their stories to their editors before the other correspondents did. To be the first to print a story, to literally break the news, was to have the ‘scoop’. And to have many scoops meant to rise in the ranks of correspondents worldwide. These days, scoops are still being made, and due to the Internet it takes minutes, instead of days, to get it through an editor and publish the story.

These days there is an enormous choice of news outlets to choose from. Internationally speaking, the most important and generally well-known ones, are without doubt the BBC and CNN. The British Broadcasting Corporation made its name primarily during the second World War, when it became a symbol for defiant and just newsreporting. BBC worldservice is broadcasting worldwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and anyone with a long wave radio can receive its broadcasts practically anywhere on the planet. CNN has become the mainstay of North American newsreporting. Mainly broadcasting on television, it has gained a reputation of being the fastest at locations that are hard to reach. In previous years however, there has been growing critisism to its use of the American military to get to certain places, where other news agencies didn’t have this possibility. It even got to the point where CNN knew about military attacks by the US military before the US military knew itself. We all remember for instance the images of US marines landing on the shores of Somalia, just finding camera lights waiting for them to arrive. CNN has even had the honour of having the ‘CNN effect’ named after them, which states in a nushell that media attention by itself has the potential to cause military intervention.(7) The Somalian conflict has been one example of the CNN effect. Its reliability has to a degree been tainted, since if CNN would have such close connections to the military, and therefore the government, its impartiality could be at risk.

Other news agencies include major newspapers, such as, among others, ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Washington Post’, ‘The Boston Globe’, and in Britain ‘The Times’ and ‘The Guardian’. Where these papers use their own correspondents in most places worldwide, other smaller newsagencies use articles from Reuters or Associated Press (AP); companies that don’t have their own outlet, but provide news for any editors who are interested. Aside from these daily sources, there are also other news periodicals, such as ‘Newsweek’, ‘Life’ and even ‘Playboy magazine’ that provide insight articles into current events.

As I mentioned before, these newsmedia are supposed to be independent, but they are still money-making enterprises. This means they all have their target audience, and with that, they also tend to get politically coloured. Some media have a reputation for not being biased, and not being on either the right- or the leftside of the political spectrum, but this is often undeserved. Even the BBC has had its share of doubtful articles, and individual reporters of both Reuters as well as AP have been involved in political scandals in Afrika and South America.(8)

There are many factors to consider here. When correspondents write their stories to the best of their ability, it is ultimately the editor that decides if it will be published or not. The editor is also the one that chooses which reporter goes to which place. Then there might be local censorship to deal with, or military censorship. Individual journalists also have a lot at stake. For them to write articles that would be too critical, would not be a smart thing to do. It could all be true, but too sensitive for the parties involved to print. Even if he would get it past the censor, and published, it would be like sticking his head up out of the cornfield waiting to get shot down, literally or figuratively speaking. In the end news reporting is all the work of people, all with their own agendas and all with their own shortcomings, whether they are conscious of it or not.

All these factors have made international correspondence prone to accusations of being unreliable. Statistics even show that only 20% of the Americans believe the media to tell the truth. Reasons for this are suspicion of governmental control, and sensationalist reporting affecting general credibility. As a response to this the latest development in news-reporting is making its mark as we speak. Increased availability to the general public, greatly due to the Internet, has made it possible to easily switch between various media sources, and see which one appeals most to you personally. It is now possible to easily check out sources, and find more information about the topics that are discussed.

Freelance reporters have got a greater impact in established and unknown media outlets, and some magazines or papers have been created entirely for the purpose of comparing various news-sources to each other. ‘The Week’ from Britain is such a magazine in which various sources are being quoted, from the right- and leftside of the media spectrum, and after which the paper makes its own brief conclusion of what is probably true, and what might happen in the future.

Possibly the most interesting result of this increased scepsis towards international correspondence, however, has probably been the emergence of ‘blogs’ as an alternative news source. The ‘Blogosphere’, as it has popularly been dubbed, provides the means for anybody with access to the Internet, to upload any information they want, for everybody to see. There are no editors, and there’s practically no censorship. The word ‘weblog’, and ‘blog’ for short, is one of the latest additions to Webster’s Dictionary. It is now quite common for anyone with a computer to have their own personal webspace as an extension of one’s self.

Blogs as a means for news reporting were first not taken seriously for obvious reasons. Personal bias, unverifiable sources, and the amount of nonsense did not promise much faith in its credibility. However, lately it has not as much become a source of original reporting, but more something of a counter-weight to the established media. It is much like a public checking service. People read articles by conventional newsoutlets, but then follow quoted sources to find out if they are credible. They provide additional information that could be vital in correctly interpreting original articles. And last but not least give opposing views on hot issues, often defended by well-researched arguments and sources. In short, they are very much taken seriously, even if it were only for the reason that they are being read by more and more people.

Current Media Affairs is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

According to Isa Basen, writer of the book ‘Media Spin’, is spin similar to bias, although it is slightly subtler than that. He says the definition of spin is:

“the shading of meaning or interpretation of events in favour of a particular point of view, and it is sometimes inadvertent or even unconscious.” (1)

Information can be spun by anyone, such as writers, journalists, editors, or politicians, and if it’s used by a government it is also known as propaganda. Propaganda, however, clearly has a negative meaning, whereas spin seems to be accepted somehow by the general public. It is said that propaganda is used by dictatorial regimes to bludgeon the populace with false information (2), but it is not that simple. Democratic governments also employ propaganda, only use different techniques. Some techniques are described by Arthur Siegel, a social science professor at York University in Toronto, whose 1996 book Radio Canada International examines World War II and Cold War propaganda. He says that,

“No matter how it is spread, propaganda comes in four basic varieties: The first level is the Big Lie, adapted by Hitler and Stalin. The state-controlled Egyptian press has been spreading a Big Lie, saying the World Trade Center was attacked by Israel to embarrass Arabs. The second layer says, ‘It doesn’t have to be the truth, so long as it’s plausible.’ The third strategy is to tell the truth but withhold the other side’s point of view. The fourth and most productive is to tell the truth, the good and the bad, the losses and the gains. Governments in Western society take the last three steps. They avoid the Big Lie, which nobody here will swallow.” 3

So, according to Siegel, avoiding ‘The Big Lie’ is something Democratic governments have to do, but that does not stop them from employing other, more subtle and insidious, methods. As noted above, spin can also occur subconsciously. In fact, the aim of spin is to make information seem natural and as true as possible, and the best way to do this is to have credible sources spin information for you, by means of self-censorship, or by simply having them report what they believe. According to Philip Knightley (3):

“The sad truth is that today government propaganda prepares its citizens for war so skilfully that it is quite likely that they do not want the truthful, objective and balanced reporting that hero war correspondents once did their best to provide.”

To prepare the public for a military campaign there are several key stages to ‘soften up’ public opinion through the media. According to Prof. Ottosen from Oslo University 3 these are:

The Preliminary Stage - during which the country concerned comes to the news, portrayed as a cause for “mounting concern” because of poverty / dictatorship / anarchy;
The Justification Stage - during which big news is produced to lend urgency to the case for armed intervention to bring about a rapid restitution of “normality”;
The Implementation Stage - when pooling and censorship provide control of coverage;
The Aftermath - during which normality is portrayed as returning to the region, before it once again drops down the news agenda.

Spin comes into play when we look at how these stages are implemented. Providing the public with news, molding public opinion, offers a government the possibility to do anything from ignoring or altering basic human rights, to invading other nations. There are several concrete ways of spinning information, and the following methods will be what I will look out for in this study. (from: http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/05/25.html)

The use of emotional words - Using words like ‘terrorist’ and ‘regime’ evokes an emotion within readers. This emotion is then used to shade interpretation of facts, or allegations that appear to be facts. Likewise, this technique can be used to evoke positive feelings as well, or to lessen the impact that some words might have. ‘Abuse’ sounds better than ‘torture’, and ‘collateral damage’ sounds better than ‘dead civilians’. You can recognise emotional words by trying to imagine what the other side might say of the same topic. After all, “One man’s terrorist is the other man’s freedom fighter”. One thing that should be noted here is that Reuters, as one of the world’s leading news agencies, has a policy of not using emotional words, and therefor chooses not to write ‘terrorist’ where other agencies would. This is a very honourable thing for Reuters to do of course, but it does not stop certain news outlets, that buy Reuters’ reports, from altering the words themselves, as CanWes, Canada’s major newspaper chain, has done at the time of the 9/11 attacks (4).

Orwellian misuse of words - This is a fascinating linguistic exercise to do. The Bush administration is (in)famous for this, using words like ‘patriot’, ‘freedom’, and ‘peace’, for things that mean almost the exact opposite. George Orwell used it in his ’1984′, with the by now notorious lines of ‘War is Peace’, ‘Freedom is slavery’, ‘Ignorance is Strength’. It is interesting to see how some military operations have Orwellian codenames such as ‘Enduring Freedom’, ‘Iraqi Freedom’, ‘Just Cause’ and ‘Infinite Justice’ (5). A more subtle way of Orwellian misuse of words is to use improper personification, or generalisation, such as using the name of a country or its people instead of saying “the government of such and such”. Examples of this are everywhere — “Iranians push ahead with nuclear programme” — can be found practically everyday in any newsoutlet.

Self-censorship – What is not reported – This form of spin is the most difficult one to notice, because it takes a lot of background knowledge and critical thinking to find out about information that is missing from articles. At the start of the 2nd Gulf War for instance there was a ban on pictures of coffins and dead US soldiers. While this example is relatively easy to detect and to understand, there are more serious examples to be found. For instance the absence of dead bodies, or horrific images in recent wars, most notably the 1st Gulf War of 1991. This was a lesson learned from the Vietnam war, during which Americans were faced with horrific images from the war. The ‘liberation of Kuwait’ is mostly viewed as having been a clean war, almost like a computer game, without casualties. Secondly, there is the practical aspect too, which is that newspapers select stories that they know will sell well. Impopular stories won’t pass the editor’s desk, even though they might be true or even very important to some people. This form of spin — self-censorship — is related to ‘what is not asked’, since reporters could get into situations of conflicting interests, often risking their job or position. Especially when they’re embedded, ‘pooled’ or picked for press conferences.

The way something is reported – This is about the degree of attention a topic gets by the media and others. Focusing on the brutality of Saddam’s regime distracts the people from the Abu Ghraib scandal. The cartoon demonstrations diverted attention away from the failing war in Iraq, just as the recent bombings of Iraqi mosques is doing. In fact, the War in Iraq distracted attention from Afghanistan and the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden. Of course, I’m not saying that these situations have been consciously created for this purpose, but the Bush administration is not complaining about the role of the media here.

Oversimplification – This is another aspect that’s difficult to recognise in the media. It plays quite an important role though in the overall picture. Media outlets have limited time and space to explain and report about rather complicated matters. This, combined with an oversimplified presentation of the situation by governments, causes the ‘dumbing-down’ of the public’s general knowledge, and hence makes the public more prone to interpret facts in an incomplete, hence wrong, way. Examples of this are ample, for instance the way that Kuwait and Iraq were portrayed before the 1st Gulf War began. There was no attention for the previous lead-up of the conflict, nor was there a correct view given of these nation’s governments. Kuwait was supposedly democratic, and Saddam an aggressor akin to Hitler. More info on this in later chapters.

Not presenting opposing interpretations of the facts - It would seem logical that the media is trained for giving balanced views of things. However, this is not always the case, especially not so in complicated and enduring issues. A journalist reports on a situation. Next to giving a correct and complete view of the issue, it is also interesting for journalists to explain a personal and involved position, and basically take a side. These days investigative journalism, which expands on background and other viewpoints regarding the topic, is on the decline, and reporters are more prone to give short representations of one view at a time. This would be acceptable if there were enough reporters to take care of any opposing views, but this is getting rare. Especially so in war zones, where it is next to impossible to get to meet the insurgents for fear of being killed or kidnapped. In some cases where people have actually had contact with the rebels they have been subsequently arrested and detained for collaborating with the enemy. A Spanish reporter who interviewed Osama Bin Laden has been put in jail on the charge of having Al-Qaeda contacts.

Giving credibility to unidentified and unsubstantiated sources and assuming facts without evidence - This happens all the time, when you read articles that start with “according to US officials”. Most facts about the WMD issue at the start of the Iraq war were based on information by Iraqi defectors. There was no proof of the weapons as we know now, but no one asked for it either. There was on the other hand proof by the CIA of Iraq most probably not having WMD, which was ignored. The sources and the information they pass on is too easily accepted as being true. When these topics are then brought forward repeatedly it uses the reader’s incomplete foreknowledge of this topic, thereby distorting the facts.

Lying - This last and more obvious technique is actually not in the official list of spin techniques, but it is more and more used by the Bush administration regarding issues in the Iraq war. Lying is basically giving false information, or refusing to give an answer. Examples are found consistently in the lead-up to the Iraq war, and during the war. The latest example I can give you is by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld when he was asked about the Pentagon paying Iraqi newsoutlets to report ‘good news’, in order to improve public morale. Rumsfeld then reportedly ordered this practice to stop. When asked about this in February 2006, however, he said: “It was put under review, and I don’t have knowledge as to whether or not it has been stopped. I do have knowledge that it was put under review, and I was correctly informed, and I just misstated the facts.” (6) This seems to me to be a very frank declaration of having lied, combined with the linguistic evasion of actually answering the question. The interesting thing is that it seems to work, counter to Arthur Siegel’s prediction that the public wouldn’t stand for it.

What is Spin? is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

From the very start in war correspondence as such — that is from the moment it was recognised as a separate branche in journalism — it has been used as a tool for politicians, newspapers and journalists to help achieve their own goals. The idea that reporters are out there to look for the truth, has not always been so apparant. As we know, in any war there are sides, and more often than not reporters are forced to choose a side to report from. Politicians have obvious sentiment for a side, but less apparent is the political motivation of newsagency editors. There are many forces that influence the eventual form of a newsstory, and it is debatable whether or not it is desirable.

In this study I’d like to demonstrate the differences in news reporting in several conflicts; to understand to what degree spin is harmful, and to try and learn about what we should be wary of when we are dealing with the media. War correspondence above all other forms of journalism is prone to manipulation, and so I focus mainly on this field of correspondence. I will try to illustrate which role the media had in several wars in history, and how spin influenced their outcome. The war in Iraq is presently the most controversial and far-reaching war, and so I will dedicate most chapters on Iraq and the U.S.

Introduction is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

It’s interesting for us to have a look at how the government portrays itself in conducting the war in Iraq. We have a clear picture in our minds of what the Bush administration wants in Iraq. We see a unified government, the Bush administration with his foremost advisors and secretaries, trying to battle terrorism in the world, and mainly the Middle East. They have identified the enemy as being Al Qaeda and all nations supporting terrorism, Iraq being the first, but North-Korea, Iran and Syria equally so. The emphasis was laid on weapons of mass destruction, and when they weren’t found in Iraq, the emphasis shifted to democracy in the Middle East. Now the shift is towards stabilising Iraq. Much attention is given to the successes of the U.S. military, and the spread of freedom throughout the region. The old ‘Domino theory’ used in the by-gone days of battling communism surfaced again.

The Domino theory came to be a favourite aspect that is often used in the defense of the war in Iraq by the Bush administration. It says that the change initially forced upon Iraq, has now spread throughout the region, as the Israeli pull-out from Gaza, and the revolution in Lebanon can attest to. Syria and Iran are reacting to the U.S. presence in Iraq, and there’s a prediction that these countries will be somehow changed into ‘free’ and ‘democratic’ nations in some time. The validity of the Domino theory is however questionable, since it is not based on any scientific reasoning. The participants in the Middle East themselves deny that it’s all a gigantic organic movement towards peace and democracy, since the particular situations of all these conflicts can not be compared when looked at in detail. The Bush administration is however still hanging on to the Domino theory in order to legitimize their actions. Interestingly, the theory is falling away from under their feet, since in recent elections there has been a trend away from democratic political development, putting forward more hardline fundamental Islamic parties in Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and Iran. The U.S. reports about the elections being a reason for joy in themselves, but many say it’s missing the point. (Time, the Week)

Bush’s presidency is not only a sign of the division of the U.S. in two distinct parts: Liberal progressive ‘blue’ states, and conservative ‘red’ states. The division can be applied throughout the whole world, and there seems to be no middle road in his famous words, “You’re either for us, or against us”. It’s something that most other nations can’t understand nor approve of, but it obviously works in America. We also see that Bush is trying to ‘religionize’ the war on terror. He is an outspoken Christian, and gets the support from his constituencies for a large part because of religious reasons. He actively mixed religion back into politics, even though in American society they were never completely separated like in most European nations. It is remarkable though, that president Bush has acknowledged he hears the ‘voice of God’ in his head telling him what to do. His extreme views are for many the proof that he is insane, and for other the proof he is a trustworthy man doing what he believes is right for the country. And no-one contests that he is not mindstrong, but it’s interesting to see such a colourful man at the head of the most powerful nation of the world, who is seemingly unwilling to make concessions in politics. George Bush Jr is as a person vital for the image of the U.S. in the world today, and many believe it is his social skills, powerful supporting team, and his selfconfidence that have allowed him to get and stay in power for 2 terms.

As far as media spin concerns, I’d like to look at his supporting team: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell; people just as, or even more famous than Bush. Earlier on, when I was talking about the prison scandal, I’ve already remarked the interesting silence regarding Secretary of State Rumsfeld. As from the start of 2006 all members of president Bush’s inner circle have kept a far lower profile than they had in earlier times. In my regular search on news websites I have rarely seen their names pop-up, which I find strange, since we are talking about some of the most powerful people in the world. Condoleeza Rice can be seen occasionally meeting with foreign relations since she replaced Colin Powell in his duties, and mr. Powell has all but disappeared from the political theatre. Time will tell if they will remain silent, since they all had major parts in an important war in modern times.

The image at home is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

A piece of spin that has been used for and against the Bush administration’s way of conducting the war in Iraq is the comparison between the war in Iraq and the failed war in Vietnam. To which extent the comparison holds up is not really to the point in this study, but how the argument is being used is important.

We are aware of how much emphasis there is in the U.S. on patriotism. The use of this word is sometimes quite out of place, and used as an argument mostly on Republican side in American politics. Recently, there have been more voices on withdrawal from Iraq, mainly from the far left in the U.S., but also some on the democrat’s side. The democratic representative Jack Murtha from Pennsylvania is one such voice, and he even calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

He was immediately attacked by the Republicans to be unpatriotic and aiding the enemy, although Bush distanced himself from these remarks and said there was nothing ‘undemocratic about disagreeing with the government’ (http://www.thestar.com/). Presidential candidate John Kerry also joined in the melée, and stood up for Murtha, although not endorsing his view of immediate withdrawal.

The issue in Iraq is very much an issue of preparing for the coming elections. But interestingly the pivotal issue regarding Iraq has become not how to win the war, but how to get out of the war. Much manouvring is taking place in democrat and republican circles to be clear on their positions regarding the withdrawal. Murtha’s remarks were a sign of this development.

Similarities with Vietnam can’t be sustained if you look at both cases in detail. Their histories are completely different, the execution of military operations is not comparable, the war aims are different, the scope of casualties is radically different, everything really, except for the way the government handles the situation with regards to the public. There is a will for war in the government, and there’s growing resistance from the public. Approval polls about both wars are similar, though there were more demonstrations and rallies held during Vietnam.

Interestingly, one of the reasons why Vietnam was conquered by the North Vietnamese army in 1975 was because the Americans had withdrawn support from the South Vietnamese government as early as 1973, when there was a peace accord made up between Hanoi and Washington. Pulling out from Iraq could very well mean a repetition of this same process. By all means, a hasty retreat could mean that the comparison with Vietnam would hold up a lot more, and the U.S. would be saddled up with an ‘Iraq-trauma’, instead of the ‘Vietnam-trauma’ it had succesfully shed in the first Gulf war.

The Vietnam comparison is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.

A similar silence can be heard on the much similar Abu Ghraib scandal. The Abu Ghraib scandal was possibly the worst public relations distaster for the American army and it’s government in the entire war. It has certainly been a turning point in changing America domestic opinion about the conduct of the war. People were suddenly made aware of the harsh reality of torture, committed by their forces, captured on film. Memories of war crimes committed in Vietnam quickly sprang to mind, and the entire chain of command in Iraq was held accountable by Americans themselves.

How the story came out itself is worthy of note. It was one of the 372nd reservists that came out with tapes of the torture practices and showed them to military police in Januari 2003. This was four months after the torture had started with assistance of special forces, and even had White House approval. Condolissa Rice herself, who was National Security Advisor at the time, had even gone out of her way to compliment the prison authorities. Soon after the media frenzy had brought about an enquiry in the scandal, it became relatively quiet again.

In fact, there were 3 subsequent enquiries, all investigating the army reservists who were involved with the tapes. No attention was given to prior orders given by their ranking officers, and even higher up in the chain of command up to Donald Rumsfeld.

Press conferences were given in April in which the Bush administration emphasized their rejection of torture. President Bush insisted that treatment of prisoners was always within the framework of American law as this excerpt from the G8 summit in June 2004 shows:

Q: Mr. President, the Justice Department issued an advisory opinion last year declaring that as Commander-in-Chief you have the authority to order any kind of interrogation techniques that are necessary to pursue the war on terror. Were you aware of this advisory opinion? Do you agree with it? And did you issue any such authorization at any time?

THE PRESIDENT: No, the authorization I issued, David, was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations. That’s the message I gave our people.

Q: Have you seen the memos?

THE PRESIDENT: I can’t remember if I’ve seen the memo or not, but I gave those instructions.

Q: Returning to the question of torture, if you knew a person was in U.S. custody and had specific information about an imminent terrorist attack that could kill hundreds or even thousands of Americans, would you authorize the use of any means necessary to get that information and to save those lives?

THE PRESIDENT: Jonathan, what I’ve authorized is that we stay within U.S. law.

Q: Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we’ve learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that’s not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, I’m going to say it one more time. If I — maybe — maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We’re a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of — from me to the government.

President Bush hereby says that American law does in fact support torture if it’s interpreted in a certain way. What’s also important is what is not being said. He does not answer the reporters questions in full, but gives one short answer on three separate questions. He does not answer the ‘moral question’, or leaves it for the reporter to figure out for himself and any conclusion he takes can easily be refuted by the administration. We see that one strategy of the White House is not to engage in dialogue but instead appease the media with simple answers.

The White House spinners had a field day with the affair though. Rumsfeld himself was now in the picture, and with him the entire administration. The one strength of the Bush administration is however it’s constistency in standing together. As was expected President Bush stood up for Rumsfeld as the following excerpt shows of an interview of President Bush in May 2004 from the official White House website: (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040505-5.html)

Q: Evidence of torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. personnel has left many Iraqis and people in the Middle East and the Arab world with the impression that the United States is no better than Saddam Hussein regime. Especially when this alleged torture took place in the Abu Ghraib Prison. What can the U.S. do, or what can you do to get out of this?

THE PRESIDENT: First, people in Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent. They must also understand that what took place in that prison does not represent America that I know. The America I know is a compassionate country that believes in freedom. The America I know cares about every individual. The America I know has sent troops into Iraq to promote freedom — good, honorable citizens that are helping the Iraqis every day……That stands in stark contrast to life under Saddam Hussein. His trained torturers were never brought to justice under his regime. There were no investigations about mistreatment of people. There will be investigations. People will be brought to justice.

Q Mr. President, in a democracy and a free society, as you mentioned, people investigate, but at the same time, even those who are not directly responsible for these events take responsibility. With such a problem of this magnitude, do we expect anyone to step down? Do you still have confidence in the Secretary of Defense?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, of course, I’ve got confidence in the Secretary of Defense, and I’ve got confidence in the commanders on the ground in Iraq, because they — they and our troops are doing great work on behalf of the Iraqi people. We’re finding the few that wanted to try to stop progress toward freedom and democracy. And we’re helping the Iraqi people stand up a government. We stand side-by-side with the Iraqis that love freedom. And — but people will be held to account. That’s what the process does. That’s what we do in America. We fully investigate; we let everybody see the results of the investigation; and then people will be held to account.

Q If your State Department issues a human rights report about practices around the world and abuses, and we call upon countries every once in a while to try to put pressure on them to allow International Red Cross to visit prisons and detention center, would you allow the International Red Cross and other human rights organization to visit prisons under the control of the U.S. military?

THE PRESIDENT: Of course, we’ll cooperate with the International Red Cross. They’re a vital organization. And we work with the International Red Cross. And you’re right, we do point out human rights abuses. We also say to those governments, clean up your act. And that’s precisely what America is doing. We’ve discovered these abuses; they’re abhorrent abuses. They do not reflect — the actions of these few people do not reflect the hearts of the American people. The American people are just as appalled at what they have seen on TV as the Iraqi citizens have. The Iraqi citizens must understand that. And, therefore, there will be a full investigation, and justice will be served. And we will do to ourselves what we expect of others.

President Bush is rather famous for his rethorics, and some of it is clearly visible in this last interview. Orwellian use of words is amply visible in the use of the word ‘freedom’, which means the exact opposite for many Iraqis. To divert attention to Saddam’s ‘trained torturers’ is also interesting to note, since this implies that America does not employ trained torturers. Something that lies at the base of the Abu Ghraib incident and to which I will later return.

PFC Lynndie England and six other enlisted reservists, among which her boyfriend, were arrested and they have since been sentenced to jail. The ‘full’ investigation that was promised by President Bush was not as full as it should have been though. It was not independent either. To expect the world to give any credit to this investigation is a lot to ask, let alone the Iraqi people. To later enquiries about accountability Bush responded to the Washington Post that the American people had supplied the accountability needed by electing him. In other words, somehow the American people did not need a court or investigation but had pardoned the entire chain of command by putting renewed faith in it and the case appeared to be closed.

Donald Rumsfeld himself, however, is in a real sense responsible for the scandal at Abu Ghraib. He himself had publicly attested right after 9/11 that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to terrorists, and in 2002, when he visited Abu Ghraib on an inspection tour, he failed to clarify guidelines on torture, and in fact wanted to ‘push the envelope’ in torturing prisoners by, for instance, ordering them to stand for prolonged periods of time. Major General Miller then aggravated the situation by ordering the detainers to “actively engage in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees”, which is about as ambiguous as it gets. Interpretation of this guideline can go anywhere, as it did in Abu Ghraib. General Miller was later put in the position to ‘clean up the prison act’, and to make sure distasters like this would not happen again. Again, an order that can be interpreted in two ways.

There is much much more information to be collected though. Cases of rape, killing, and child prisoners have been mentioned in the media, but not brought together in a single case against the U.S. military. There is however one movement that is actively trying to keep the topic alive, which is the Centre of Constitutional Rights. The CCR is an American non-profit non-governmental organisation that keeps a check on all violations of human rights and the U.S. constitutional rights.

It started with the Washington Post when it published a report on how the CACI had won a 23 million dollar contract extension with the U.S. military to continue interrogation and torture in Iraq. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ A41215-2004Aug4.html) The CACI is an intelligence organisation based in Britain that is still involved in a judicial dispute with the Centre of Constitutional rights who charge the CACI to “scheme to torture, rape, and in some instances summarily execute plaintiffs”. Not a light accusation.

CACI was in control of the Abu Ghraib interrogations, although they still don’t confirm it. They had 29 employees at Abu Ghraib, according to Senate testimony during the trials. However, they could not be held accountable, because their work is classified and cannot be made public. The investigative report that was made up clearly accuses two civilian CACI employees to be part of the torture practices, but CACI protects it’s employees by saying that they were under orders of the military, and that their people were highly trained — implying there was some cilivity in their torture practices perhaps? (http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/corporate/ caci_internatonal/) When trying to get information on the current status of the lawsuit against CACI I came across the official statement as quoted by their lawyer John F. Connor:

“This motion is just the latest effort by a group of unprincipled lawyers to twist and invent facts in an attempt to dictate the United States’ policies in Iraq, and to defame and extort financial compensation from CACI. CACI has at all times provided highly qualified interrogators in support of the United States’ mission in Iraq and is proud of the patriotic service its employees have rendered. Indeed, plaintiffs’ motion deceitfully fails to acknowledge that the interrogators provided by CACI without exception satisfied all of the qualifications set forth in the Statement of Work issued to CACI by the United States government.

“By way of example, all of the interrogators provided by CACI are United States citizens with a minimum Secret or higher security clearance, meaning that they have undergone extensive background investigations in the course of obtaining such clearances. Among the clearest principles of American law is that decisions relating to the composition, training, equipping and control of a military force are professional military judgments with which the federal courts will not interfere.

“Therefore, we are confident that the Court will deny the plaintiffs’ latest in a long string of frivolous and disingenuous filings in this action.”

Interestingly the Centre of Constitutional rights won the dispute, and as of September 2005 the CACI was forced to withdraw it’s employees from Iraq. It is currently pursuing the case to make cases against Donald Rumsfeld, as you can read in this quote from the CCR website:

CCR President Michael Ratner, who traveled to Berlin to file the complaint, said “From Donald Rumsfeld on down, the political and military leaders in charge of Iraq policy must be investigated and held accountable. It is shameful that the United States of America, a nation that purports to set moral and legal standards for world, refuses to seriously investigate the role of those at the top of the chain of command in these horrible crimes.” “Indeed,” Ratner added “the existence of ‘torture memos’ drafted by administration officials and the authorization of techniques that violated humanitarian law by Secretary Rumsfeld, Lt. General Sanchez and others make clear that responsibility for Abu Ghraib and other violations of law reaches all the way to the top.”

This does not hide the fact that the media is still not giving it the attention it deserves. Again an example of how ‘ommitting news’ is a vital instrument in media spinning. At this moment two human rights groups are trying to build cases against Donald Rumsfeld based on his actual orders with regards to prisoner treatment, and the concept of command responsibility. We do not hear much about the process of the trials, and the entire person of Donald Rumsfeld has virtually disappeared from the media playgrounds. So, unlike the media silence would have us believe, the Abu Ghraib story is not over yet, and it will be interesting to see how it will end.

The CIA has since continued their ‘practices’, and the latest on this that it is now officially become known as torture. Former CIA employees have stepped forward themselves, and news agencies have reportedly got information from inside sources as well, regarding the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. These include, according to AFP: (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usattacksprisonsciainterrogation)

Attention Grab, Attention Slap, Belly Slap, Long Time Standing, Cold Cell, Water Boarding:

- In “Belly Slap,” interrogators deliver “a hard open-handed slap to the stomach” intended to cause pain but not internal injury.
- In “Long Time Standing,” prisoners are forced to stand handcuffed and shackled for more than 40 hours.
- In “The Cold Cell” a prisoner is made to stand naked in a cell kept near 10 degrees C (50 degrees F) and is continually doused with cold water.
- Water Boarding brings results within seconds, the sources said. A prisoner is tied onto a board with his feet higher than his head, and his face is wrapped in cellophane. When water is poured over him, he begins to gag and begs to confess.

Human Rights Watch is one of the organisations that is actively pursuing to bring these practices to an end, by in effect take the CIA to court. According to John Sifton of Human Rights Watch “The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law.” The CIA itself “would neither confirm nor deny the accounts. They simply declined to comment,” according to ABC. A report made by CIA inspector general John Helgerson however describes 10 techniques authorised and used by the U.S. military that violate the international Convention Against Torture, according to current and former officials in the Bush administration.

There is currently much ado about the CIA torture practices that are conducted outside of the U.S. in countries where torture is not illegal. How these trials will eventually be staged is as yet unclear. I’m curious myself as to how the media will pick up on it, as there’s a shift of public opinion towards opposition against the war in the U.S. itself. Perhaps this will induce newsagencies to stick their necks out a little bit more, and help build public awareness about crimes committed in their name.

Well, of course that’s another talking point: is it a crime? Is the U.S. torturing P.O.W.’s, or are they merely using “unique and innovative ways to extract information legally from terrorists who are not P.O.W.’s.”? A lot of it is semantics: Define ‘war’. Define P.O.W. Define ‘torture’. Define ‘legal’. And try to define all of these terms, in each different report you read about this topic.

The discussion has been going on in the background since the Abu Ghraib scandal, but at the start of 2006, when new pictures and films were shown of prison brutality, the discussion is again forced in public. This time new footage and images come from Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners are shown covered in feces, threatened by dogs, humiliated, and in a word: tortured. And again there is outspoken criticism, again an investigation. But this time it is even UN secretary Kofi Annan that says the practices at Guantanamo are illegal, and the facility must close.

The top US envoy for public diplomacy however defends Guantanamo, as well as Secretary of State Rumsfeld, saying that the investigators have not visited Guantanamo and hence can not judge correctly. The investigators say in their turn that they were only allowed restricted access to the facility, which led them to the conclusion that Guantanamo has to be closed. The US is not going to do that though, as is made clear by Secretary Rumsfeld (3 feb 18, AP),

The Abu Ghraib Scandal is a post from mediaspin.web-log.nl.