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Psychological Warfare and Iraq War
Immanuel Kant had dreamt of perpetual peace in the world. Instead perpetual war is all that the dwellers of the globe are experiencing. War to end war was the rhetoric used for justifying World War II but that did not happen. Over 200 military operations have occurred since then but peace is nowhere in sight. Nations predisposed to imposing their will on other nations, often take recourse to war as a psychological weapon to bring them to a point of desperation to accept the terms and conditions, which are deemed imperative for sustenance of dominance of powerful nations. World has always been in this vicious game of controlling nations for power and economic exploitation, occupation of territory and all that go to satisfy the greed of the powerful ones. Clausewitz was right that “War is an extension of policy by other means”.
In order to achieve the objective of war a powerful weapon was conceived known as psychological warfare (psy-war). It was defined as
“the planned use, in time of war or declared emergency of propaganda and exploitation of other actions, with the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes and behavior of enemy, neutral or friendly foreign groups in such a way as to support the accomplishment of national aims and objectives.”
This weapon assumed to be the most vital winning factor of the World War II by the allies and defeat of the Nazis, whose psychological warfare strategy propounded by Dr. Gobbles was inherently inferior being based on lies and damn lies. The Germen strategists acknowledged the allied forces’ superiority in psychological weapons. Eisenhower acknowledged;
“It was an important contributing factor in undermining the enemy’s will to resist and supporting the fighting morale in the occupied countries. Psychological warfare has proven its right to a place of dignity in our military arsenal.”
The military analyst J.F.C Fuller who coined the term psychological warfare in 1920 predicted,
“the traditional means of warfare may in time be replaced by a purely psychological warfare, where in weapons are not even used or battle fields sought but rather the corruption of the human reason of dimming of the human intellect and the disintegration of the moral and spiritual life of one nation by the influence of the will of another is accomplished”
His prediction did not prove to be true, as USA has remained glued to the concept of massive destruction for exhausting the will of the adversary and reduce its fighting skill to be able to perpetuate the hegemony of USA. Both the Gulf wars of 1991 and the present Iraq war bear a testimony that USA accentuates human tragedy, euphemistically called ‘collateral damages’ to achieve the objectives. Mind boggling figure of expenditure being spent by USA on its military budget, which accounts for 40% of the military expenditure of the whole world, testifies how ruthless it could be. It is estimated that with the rate the military budget is increasing, by the year 2008 it would come to $ 500 billion. To justify this huge expenditure it has to demonstrate its military might to ensure its primacy over the world. It is this dimension of psychological warfare, which is the unique feature of USA as it negates the very purpose of psy-war to reduce killings and human sufferings, as Sun Tzu had emphasized that the purpose was to achieve victory without even fighting a war.
As the psy-war gained its efficacy in the conduct of war, it proved to be far more damaging than any other weapon conceived so far, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) notwithstanding. The military strategists however realized that psy-war is an all time affair both during peace and war and also to be used to win over the hearts and minds of not only the enemies but also of the neutral countries and strengthening the support of the friendly nations. To associate it with the negative connotations of war was not deemed expedient. Therefore, there was a search for new terminology to encompass its broad dimensions and objectives. Psychological operations (psy-ops) came in handy to fulfill this purpose. It was defined as:
“Psychological activities and psychological warfare and encompasses those political, military, economic and ideological actions planned and executed to create in enemy, hostile, neutral or friendly foreign group, the emotions, attitudes or behavior favorable to the accomplishment of national policies and objectives”.
USA has an elaborate setup at Fort Bragg, North Carolina to impart training, to plan and execute psy-ops at my theatre of war that USA and its allied forces may be engaged in. This special school has all the elaborate arrangements of trained psy-ops units, brigades and divisions to launch leaflet operations at a massive scale besides beaming propaganda communication through radio and electronic media. The propaganda is launched through White source (authentic and well-known sources) or Black Operations (distorting the origin of source like black radios). Moreover, Gray propaganda is also used where no sources are indicated and messages are communicated. Combinations of all sources are well planned and executed to suit the requirements. The idea is to demoralize the fighting forces and cause dissensions and defections among them. Ultimately, it is aimed that they would be manipulated to surrender. The civilian population also are psychologically softened and persuaded to lend no help and cooperation to their fighting soldiers.
Psy-ops, therefore, is a very comprehensive weapon for creating attitudinal climate favorable for war, its conduct and even continuing the operations after the war was seized. It comprises a whole lot of activities like imposing or lifting of sanctions, trade embargoes, mobilizing IMF, World Bank and aid giving agencies for providing or depriving loans and other activities to highlight the ideological over-tones to lend moral justification for war. The Gulf War of 1991 is indeed a success story of this weapon. Iraq was psychologically maneuvered to commit blunder by attacking Kuwait. It is now revealed that on July 25, 1991, in the meeting between ambassador Glaspie and Saddam Hussein, the US strongly suggested, it would not intervene in a conflict between Iraq and Kuwait. The deception worked to the detriment of Iraqi leader, as he was demonized as Hitler having lust for grabbing neighbour’s territory. Indeed the psychological fall out of this grave mistake caused enormous damage to the people of Iraq and the image of its leader in the world. The whole edifice of psy-war was built on the so-called moral theme and exaggerating the potency of the Iraqi Imperial Guards to justify ruthless bombing of Iraq.
Continuation of sanctions even after war is part of the strategy, so that Iraqi soldiers, out of sheer debility, the dread of weapons and the fear of death (3Ds) would not be able to put strong resistance for a long time. John MacArthur has written an elaborate account in his book, “Second Front”, covering the strategies and tactics followed in this war. A secret ten-page document known as “Annex FoxTrot”, spelt out the psy-ops doctrine. There was a planned effort to project the war a success without showing colossal loss of lives. Media coverage of operation Desert Shield was very selective. “News media representatives will be escorted at all times. Repeat at all times”, says the document. The media Moguls- CNN, CBS, NBC, and BBC did a fine job of implementing the doctrine. The book rightly acknowledges:
“Never before had carefully designed electronic imagery so dominated the coverage of a conflict. It was the first full fledged logo war; Vietnam –era film of actual fighting look crude and old fashioned along side the slick production values of Desert Graphic, and since animated slaughter was obviously out of the question, the imagery harmonized perfectly with the Pentagon’s plan to hide the killing”.Express Your Thoughts!