Letter from the Editor

Why Bush’s invasion of Iraq means an attack on Democracy itself...

Andrew Garib, Turn Left | It may seem cynical of me to say this, but in the era of 24 hours news, reporters embedded among military ranks, and ‘smart’ laser-guided munitions equipped with video cameras, a picture is worth a thousand criticisms. As are military vocabulary, campaign names, the rhetoric of the belligerents, and reassurances of moral high-standing from government officials.

Every government involved in this conflict in Iraq can be accused of their own brand of rhetoric and moral grandstanding – from headstrong American hawks to hypocritical French doves – but this lays the foundations for a problem of immediate governmental consequence. In a time of war, as well as the crucial time of war’s prelude, the words of diplomacy both between and within governments are articulated with the greatest care to convince and showboat, and the least care to maintain objectivity.

Information technology is a recurring theme in this preemptive war in Iraq: Precision weapons are guided by GPS systems; bombing raids focussed on communications systems in order to disrupt the highly-centralized Iraqi army; daily war updates from CentCom in Doha, Qatar keep even the most passive Western war-watcher in the know. More prominent than any of these in the minds of Americans is the minute- by-minute coverage provided by the leading sources of television and internet news – in particular, the Cable News Network.

Yet the true theme of this war – politically, at least – is how much we don’t know, what is not being clearly communicated, and what are the real motives driving the key Western players (of course, the goals of Saddam Hussein’s now defunct regime were clear enough). The shifting motivations, the flippant disregard for third party opinion, the questionable over-reliance on intelligence information – all on the part of the American government – make public objective knowledge of both Bush administration goals and conflict justification as moot, as it seems, as the idea that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ever had weapons of mass destruction.

You may remember – and I say this because very little time in mainstream media has been given to questioning the reasoning behind Bush’s focal shift from ‘NBCs’ (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical weapons) to regime change – that Colin Powell once pressured the United Nations towards war in the name of Iraqi disarmament. Now the American invading armies fly the banner of Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom,’ without the support of the UN whose weapons inspectors claimed good progress and no real weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the declaration of war. We were to trust George W.’s word, as well as those of Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell, that America’s pre-emptive removal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (and the entire Hussein regime to boot) was justified and good.

To an objective observer, the issue of whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction seems to be one that could be easily proven, perhaps without resorting to accusations of Iraqi military deception. The means of producing, storing, and delivering NBC’s are conspicuous enough to find with thorough investigation by professionals who are familiar with their Iraqi subject. It was bold enough to threaten invasion of Iraq if the disarming conditions of the peace accords ending 1991’s Operation Desert Storm were not met met. Yet when a successful inspection regimen goes head-to-head with Bush doctrine, our objective observer is left scratching her head. What data were missing from Bush’s laptop when the decision to declare war was made?

Usually it’s not for a lack of information that the cause of Truth hurts. The flow of information between newsmakers and watchers may be more of an inundation – just a single minute of CNN broadcast, complete with tickers and sidebars, packs in more to think about than an enlightenment philosophy text – but it should be readily apparent that the price we pay is clarity and objectivity. Proper foregrounding of specific news, coupled with repetition of certain ideas and of certain powerful images can sway the mind of the masses. This is no conspiracy between news programming and Washington (although I’m sure many would try and make a case for it), but a showcase of the exquisite media savvy of this Bush administration – perhaps unparalleled in history. This is where clarity and objectivity fall to White House rhetoric, and where one forms the basis for at least the first thousand criticisms of the latest Bush visual masterpiece, Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Bush administration’s lies were blatant because they were repeated and reinforced in the minds of Americans, yet never backed up by concrete data: from the aluminium tubes, supposedly used in the process of uranium enrichment which were later found to be conventional rocket canisters; to the alleged Al-Qaeda connection which was never proven; to satellite reconnaissance of the Iraqi military covertly moving nuclear weapons development hardware, which turned out to be bogus. Now, in the closing scenes of the war, both the Al-Qaeda connection and the NBC weapons are moot points, while visions of toppling Saddam statues resonate on 24 hour news channel screens hourly – a supreme moral vindication of the contingent and latest justification of the invasion.

No one in the world is unhappy to see Saddam’s ruthless dictatorship removed forever. But I can’t help but worry that with a constantly moving target of war motivation, the goals of the administration are never within the sights of the public long enough for public opinion to form before action is taken. We, including the international community, agreed that war in case of illegal Iraqi arms programmes being found was sound; we were distracted with claims of non-existent production capabilities of Iraqi military scientists while inspectors worked away; we were momentarily cajoled into believing in a possible connection to Al-Qaeda and the greater threat of international terrorism; and even more brashly, we were led to believe, though George Bush Jr.’s own words, not only that Iraq had nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities, but that Hussein’s regime refused to disarm.

Reason will not prevail in an atmosphere of sustained, unabashed rhetoric. If we are to take anything our government tells us for face value, we should be trusting of our nation’s leaders when they convince us of the need for war. But when the rhetoric clears, and we are left with no good evidence for proceeding with a preemptive war, I fear that the disconnect Americans have abhorred since independence – one between a people and its government – has emerged as the deciding factor in a war declaration that, in terms of the war’s supposed justifications, makes less sense than Reaganomics.

To go to war is one of the most important decisions a democracy can make. It should take both the will and the strength of a nation to defend itself or its allies from imminent attack. So forget the UN. Forget the international community (except Iraq, of course). Forget any international, broad-minded reason to criticize a war in Iraq. If it is up to the American people alone to go to war, how can we come to any conclusion with no constant goal or sound justification? How can democracy function at all when the average American sees no logical consistency in the reasoning behind government actions?

This article is not a warning against how Machiavellian governments conduct only wars, but all battles to sway public opinion. The media is a powerful tool of sustained, credible persuasion which in its best form is the greatest aid to the cause of democracy. But with an administration with no regard for how or of what to convince a population in order to satisfy its end goals, the media becomes the ultimate tool for the hijacking of meaningful representative government. Whatever an administration’s goals, whether health care reform or Donald Rumsfeld’s vision of a New American Century, they should be at least plain to all voters, whose voice our system of governance should ultimately consult.

With this degree of misinformation and rhetoric behind the motives and mechanics of the War on Iraq (I think after writing this article it would be hypocritical of me to continue to refer to it as ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’), I feel Americans, not Mr. Bush, should be ‘sick and tired of games and deception.’ I can only hope that Americans come to understand that government operating under the shadow of such a pervasive network of lies and rhetoric is one that does not best serve the people. Hopefully citizens of the United States buy into at least one aspect of the Bush doctrine – and demand a domestic regime change from the Electoral College in 2004. End.