Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
September 3, 2003
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
Recent
Stories
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
Hot Stories
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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September
3, 2003
The Pentagon's Bungled
Psyops Strategy
Iraq
Isn't the Wild West, It's the Wild Middle East: the Cultues are
Wildly Different
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
The Pentagon defines Psychological Operations
as intended ". . . to convey selected information and indicators
to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective
reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign government
[sic], organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of
psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes
and behavior favorable to the originator's objectives."
Further, "Psychological warfare
[is] directed toward populations in friendly rear areas or in
territory occupied by friendly military forces with the objective
of facilitating military operations and promoting maximum cooperation
among the civil populace."
That is perfectly clear. The aim of psyops/psywar
is to influence foreigners to alter their usual way of thinking,
be that independently reasoned or imposed or encouraged by their
own authorities. The most important aspect is credibility, and
a major factor in establishing this is to avoid direct denigration
of the target and its associates while, with great subtlety,
making it (a person, an organisation, a country) look incompetent,
ignorant or, preferably, silly. (Nobody can stand up to justified
and well-directed ridicule. It is the one weapon against which
there is no defence atall.) But psychological operations have
to be cleverly conceived and carried out by playing on characteristics
of local culture while displaying deference to them. This demands
awareness and appreciation of national traditions, religions,
venerated historical figures, superstitions, language subtleties,
customs, hopes and fears.
In his memoirs, 'Orientations' (London
1937), Sir Ronald Storrs, a man of illustrious parts, wrote that
"The science of war propaganda dates, I suppose, from no
earlier than 1914. [His diary note was in early 1916.] We therefore
had no textbook upon which to base our methods. All we knew was
that careful and progressive handling of public opinion was no
less difficult than necessary among peoples of alien race, language
and religion. [Storrs spoke fluent Arabic, classic and colloquial,
and his knowledge of the region was immense.] Articles, diagrams
and caricatures effective in Europe often produce a negative,
sometimes even a contrary, result in the East." His statement
could well be used in the introduction to any psyops manual,
and I bore it in mind when I commanded the Australian psyops
unit in Vietnam.
So let's see what gives in present-day
Iraq. Here is part of a Reuters' report of August 18 that gives
an indication of how sophisticated US psywar has become.
"US forces plan to put up posters
around Saddam's hometown of Tikrit showing his face superimposed
on Hollywood heroines and other stars in an attempt to enrage
his followers and draw them out. As well as Saddam dolled up
as a slinky Zsa Zsa Gabor, there is a busty Rita Hayworth Saddam,
a grooving Elvis Saddam and even Saddam in the guise of . . .
rocker Billy Idol. "We're going to do something devious
with these," said a chuckling Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell
[a battalion commander] . . . One of the posters shows Saddam's
head on Elvis's dancing body, a gold crucifix hanging around
his hairy chest. Given fears in the Arab world that the invasion
of Iraq was akin to a Christian crusade, some Iraqis say US forces
would do well to think twice about leaving the cross hanging
around Saddam Elvis's neck. "Maybe it is funny for the soldiers,
but I think most locals will find it very insulting," said
Uday, a 22-year-old translator at the US army base in Tikrit."
The chuckling colonel imagines that locals
"will be laughing" at his absurd attempts to influence
"the bad guys". But the translator, Uday, had the correct
interpretation of the way the project will be regarded when he
said "most locals will find it very insulting". He
is so right. And what is ludicrous is that people like Uday are
the very ones who should be asked for advice about psyops initiatives.
This has nothing to do with Islam (apart from depiction of the
Elvis crucifix, which is breathtakingly crass. In fact that image,
alone, should be worth a few dozen recruits to resistance groups).
It has everything to do with lack of awareness about how foreigners
think and react.
Occupation forces may be working hard
at some levels to try to isolate Iraqi resistance fighters from
the population, but given the enormous setbacks to trust and
tranquillity that have taken place so far, caused mainly by the
"We are the conquerors" approach, and a boastful arrogance
that is as truculent as it is provocative, this objective is
unlikely to be achieved.
It is fatal in psychological operations,
just as in ordinary public relations, to indulge in insult, contempt
or scorn. A boorish put-down might give the boor a feeling of
satisfaction, but it is the ultimate No-No in psyops because
no matter who you are, or what circumstances you are in, a direct
insult is an adrenalin booster that makes you hate the person
who insulted you. And not only the person, but what he or she
stands for. This increases enormously the inclination of the
individual or group that has been vilified to indulge in violence
as well as providing a moral-superiority feeling of self-justification
for committing atrocities. If this is what US occupation forces
want to achieve, then fine. (The biggest psyops disaster so far
has been Bush's brain-dead challenge to "Bring 'em On.")
But if it is the intention of the occupying power to draw the
Iraqi (and especially Tikriti) population closer to cooperation
by persuading them that US occupation troops are friendly, then
insulting Iraqis - any Iraqis of whatever religion, ethnicity
or political persuasion - is the worst possible way to try to
go about it. In the words of Bob Herbert of the NYT, perhaps
a little bit of adult supervision would not go amiss.
In Tikrit, one of the most sensitive
areas in Iraq, Lt-Col Russell (who declares that "God is
watching over [my] battalion, believe me"), told Associated
Press on 26 August that "The enemy is a coward. He continues
to hide behind women, children and his own population."
When such statements are put alongside television cover of Iraqi
men being forced to lie face-down in the dirt, hands tied behind
their backs, while their terrified families look aghast at the
spectacle of humiliation - and are themselves menaced by rifles
pointed directly at them - one can see why, and how completely,
the US has lost the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq.
Lt-Col Russell's superior, Colonel James
Hickey, told AP that "enemy tactics are 'miss and run'.
They're almost running when they pull the trigger. I have yet
to see any degree of military competence. They are not experienced
fighters. They fire a mortar, then pick up and run . . . "
Colonel Hickey has described, obviously without realising it,
the classic tactics of the guerrilla. The sequence of identifying
a target, siting a weapon, firing it, then getting out quickly
is precisely what guerrilla warfare is all about. Of course the
enemy are not "experienced fighters". And they don't
have "any degree of military competence". Most are
amateurs, ordinary citizens, who hate Hickey and Russell and
all they stand for because their soldiers show no respect for
their families and especially women in their irreligious, ferocious
and intimidating door-crashing house raids in the middle of the
night.
This Reuters' piece by Andrew Cawthorne
on September 1 sums up the bungled and clumsy tactics: "Iraqi
sheep farmer Thani Mushlah was asleep on his roof when American
soldiers arrived before dawn. "They banged open my door,
came for me and made me lie face down on the floor in front of
my wife and children" Two hours later . . . Mushlah, 33,
was sitting handcuffed on the desert floor inside a ring of barbed
wire used as a temporary prison . . . [he said] "The Americans
said they came to free us, so why do they humiliate and insult
us?"." There is now talk of "cordon and knock",
but it's far too late for this sort of amendment. In any event,
occupation troops are simply not trained for this sort of operation
and will continue to use ultra-violent house-fighting techniques
against terrified civilians. Don't get me wrong : when shock
tactics are needed in all-out urban warfare I'm the first to
support them. But one of the things you don't do is rush through
a door - always blast a hole in the wall with a shaped charge.
That, however, is when you're fighting against big boys, not
terrorising women and children.
A report by Paul McGeough of Australia's
'Age' newspaper on 16 August illustrates the appalling lack of
sensitivity on the part of the occupying power. "I have
just returned to my Baghdad hotel, on Abu Nuwas Street which
runs along the east bank of the Tigris, when a US Humvee roars
past. Blaring from a block of six big speakers strapped to its
rooftop is John Mellencamp's 1980s American anthem 'Pink Houses:
Ain't that America? You and me! Ain't that America? Something
to seeeee!' "
This may be a huge joke for someone whose
global horizon ends at his extended fingertips, but such vulgar
and contemptuous performances announce to the Iraqi people "The
hell with you and your culture. We own your country and we'll
do what we damn well please. And if you're praying as we blast
by in our Humvee, then tooooo bad."
The latest wheeze conceived by occupation
troops is to put up posters "that carry the faces of Saddam
and his sons . . The sons' faces are covered with an 'X', reminding
Iraqis that they were killed by American forces . . ."
However much Iraqis loathed Saddam Hussein
and his horrible regime, they will regard this ill-judged, inefficient
and malevolent campaign as evidence of alien gloating at the
humiliation of their country. This sort of clumsy stuff certainly
won't have the effect of "promoting maximum cooperation
among the civil populace" and, as Sir Reginald Storrs observed
almost a century ago, will "produce a negative, sometimes
even a contrary, result". Iraq isn't the Wild West, it's
the Wild Middle East, where cultures are different. Occupation
troops appear incapable of understanding foreign culture, and
the psyops battle for Iraq has been a disaster.
Brian Cloughley
writes about defense issues for CounterPunch, the Nation (Pakistan),
the Daily Times of Pakistan and other international publications.
His writings are collected on his website: www.briancloughley.com.
He can be reached at: beecluff@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 30 / Sept. 1, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
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