Psyops, Al-Jazeera, and the American Media: How to Win the Propaganda War
By Stormin Norman
Propaganda is one of the greatest weapons in warfare. The ability to psyche out your opponent is an advantage that has been emphasized since the beginning of warfare. In medieval times this was best accomplished with a commanding and overwhelming presence on the battlefield. In fact, military uniforms were often designed to complement the barbaric nature of the forces that often carried with them a reputation of being ruthless in their battlefield behavior. The overwhelming size of the Vikings and Germans were often advantageous for this reason. The Roman Legions were completely intimidated by the Germans that were also notorious for being fierce warriors. Military leaders also have the ability to weaken the resolve of the opposition forces that they engaged, through name recognition alone. Alexander the Great, whose “name struck fear into the hearts of men”, is an excellent example of the weight that violent imagery had in winning capitulation.
As all humanity progressed, so did the methods of warfare, and its use of psychologically thwarting the opponent. Sometimes these advances were not always exclusive. Technological advantages, and new methods of fighting, could create the necessary psychological advantage. Clearly, this is one of the greatest advantages guerrilla warfare had when first employed against outmoded means of warfare. Hit and run harassment tactics can undermine the willingness of conventional force to fight, as is demonstrated in many of the great military campaigns since the French and Indian War. Guerrilla warfare can present the illusion of a larger force than actually exists, and can generate an environment where safety cannot be assumed. Surely, a large force can also be weakened if these tactics prevent the enemy from acquiring sleep.
In recent years, the United States has place great emphasis in the use of psyops. From dropping leaflets, to continual bombing raids, we have become rather adept at its many uses. In fact, our technological edge alone is sure to make any army think twice before engaging our multifaceted armed forces. Our reputation from previous wars also lends a heavy hand to perpetuate the kind of fear that becomes necessary for psychological warfare.
Today, our power is being challenged by a backward subculture that uses terrorism as a way to answer our gargantuan size, and overwhelming strength. They may believe that they have found the Achilles heal of the raging bull. Not only do they employ guerrilla tactics when faced on the battlefield, but also they assume that they can weaken our population’s willingness to fight by targeting our civilians at home. More troubling than their ability to killed innocents indiscriminately is the strength of their numbers. Muhammad has about 1.2 billion followers throughout the world. Large portions of them subscribe to the extremely violent version of that religion. Many of them are more than willing to sacrifice their own lives to propagate the religious fundamentalism that they adhere to.
One of the main differences between our culture, and the Islam remains the fact that that we value the sanctity of human life, while they seem to be willing to suffer huge casualties for their cause. 1,000,000 lives means nothing to those who value martyrdom and Jihad, while we here at home get discouraged when we loose a handful.
Possibly more important in this psychological campaign is the ability to manipulate the popularity and support from the cultures who are in violent opposition. One of the disadvantages we have when engaging an enemy of this kind once again lies in our respect for human rights. We have fought long and hard to preserve a system that is superior to our enemies in many respects. However, democratic rule enables the population to assert direct pressure on the representatives that we entrust to operate our government. Therefore, the use of propaganda on our citizens becomes that much more important. Without the widespread support for this war, our people will grow restless, and our government will have no choice but to follow suit.
Our enemies understand this aspect of our civilization, and seek to play off of it. Al-Jazeera is being used as a weapon against us. First of all, they produce the propaganda that rallies our enemies to the cause of the Islamofascists, who use their religion as a way to manipulate the sentiment in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera produces the kind of anti-Semitic rhetoric that most Arabs can agree on. In addition, they tie America to the “Jewish conspiracy”, in a successful attempt to further demonize the United States, their sworn enemy. Al-Jazeera also elevates Osama bin Laden to the level of a folk hero on the Arab Street. More recently, they have depicted Saddam Hussein, and Iraq as a victim of colonization. Furthermore, they depict America as a murdering nation, as they blame the United States for the deaths of Iraqis who have been starved to death by their own President. They seek to inflame the Mid-Eastern populace by pointing to U.S. military bases on their most sacred lands. They perpetuate the encroachment of multinational interests as a modern threat from the infidels, as they compare strip malls to the crusades. They emphasis Arab casualties in Iraq, for the purposes of creating further hostilities, in an attempt to further destabilize the region. Their main objective is to ignite the Arab world, by using inflammatory language to drum up support for Jihad.
The most disturbing aspect of Al-Jazeera has been the willingness of the mainstream media to grant them credibility as a legitimate news organization. Most recently, Iraqi television produced images of our troops being interrogated and executed, and Al-Jazeera followed suit. This has been extremely disturbing, as the main purpose for this imagery is to satiate the blood lust of an extremely large population. Furthermore, this propaganda is being used in an attempt to dissuade our population from a war necessary for our survival. This is the extent of Iraq’s psychological warfare on the American people. Unfortunately, with the help of Al-Jazeera it is proving to be rather effective.
Saddam Hussein remembers Mogadishu, when the Somalis desecrated the bodies of U.S. servicemen who had been killed. This generated great distress on the American people, and our forces were soon removed from that country. As a result, our enemy became more aggressive as they viewed our pulling out of Somalia as a great victory, against an invading army of infidels. Islamic extremists became more brazen in their attacks, after an embarrassing withdrawal by then President Clinton. Saddam assumes that this may again work on a soft American population that does not have the stomach for such violent imagery.
More troubling than Al-Jazeera’s use of such brutality to discourage the American pubic from supporting the war, is the way that Western media does the same thing. Tomorrow’s headlines will all concentrate on the losses we have suffered, while ignoring the phenomenal advances that we have seen in the Iraqi Theater.
Once again the American media outlets are failing the American people. First, they led us into this mess; by ignoring the threats that were amassing in the world, while they preferred talking about school violence, gun control, rising stock markets, SUV standards, and global warming, to the dangers presented by a crumbling Soviet Union, the neutering of our intelligence capabilities, the downsizing of our military, and the loss of secrets to a number of our enemies. They failed us then, and they are failing us now, by effectively carrying out Al Qaeda’s propaganda for them. They downplayed the threat then, just as they are downplaying the threat now.
When was the last time they showed you images of the many hostage situations that have occurred since the 1970’s? When was the last time you saw the images of the WTC collapse? Did you ever see the Danny Pearl tapes? How about the press agents that were skinned alive in Afghanistan? Did you ever see them practicing with chemical weapons, as they gassed man’s best friend? How about the unedited version of the Taliban putting a bullet through the head of a woman? Let’s see some more public floggings of women in that part of the world. Let’s discuss “mercy killings”. Let’s expose the fact that U.S. military personnel are forced to wear the abyai in Saudi Arabia, if they are women. Let's talk about the many fatwas that have been issued on people publishing works seen as denegrating to Islam. What happened in Nigeria when Miss World came to their town? Let’s piece together a documentary, complete with the splattering of Americans on the pavement from 100 stories up, and with images of the 5000 dead in Halabja. Don’t just show still photos that depict a violation of the Geneva Convention. Show the full video in order to demonstrate the validity of our mission.
By propaganda, I mean let’s tell the truth to the American public, and not whitewash it for fear of a backlash against Arab-Americans. It seems as if we should be more concerned with our own survival, than offending those who wish to slit our throats in our sleep. We have the ways and means to prosecute a superior propaganda campaign against our enemies. We have the truth on our side, and we need nothing more to galvanize our population, if only someone had the courage to air it. The financial networks that aid and abet the Al Qaeda network have been targeted in this war, and we should do everything in our power to cripple their ability to employ propaganda. Those who propagandize for the enemy should be directly targeted. Al-Jazeera should be jammed and replaced with a history channel that depicts the great atrocities coming out of the Arab world. Those atrocities should be compared and contrasted with similar events that have occurred throughout communist countries. Everything should be done to demonstrate how backward their 7th century view of the world actually is. Finally, those who run the brainwashing schools, known as the madrassas, should be assassinated, and the victims should be deprogrammed immediately. One thing is for certain, we should not grant Al-Jazeera the credibility of an actual network, and if anything they should be jammed. If the American media outlets continue to publish a similar message, they should suffer from reduced subscriptions and declining advertisement value. The American people should be demanding a pro-American slant, especially considering the possible outcome of this war.
(Edited by Ghost Writer at 2:17 pm on Mar. 25, 2003)