Hi Michael
Here are some of my thoughts. I know I'm apparently always going on about
neo-philia, but what surprises me about this war, it's reporting, and the
rhetoric used (even on the antiwar front) is both the common proclamation of
a 'new' type of warfare, or an apparent amnesia of warfare and its media in
general. Why do 'we' have this amnesia?
Examples of 'new' include:
"psy-ops"
- disinformation and misinformation are nothing new, Stonewall Jackson was
one famous exponent of this careful use of information in war. Propaganda
battles are not a recent (or even C20th) phenomenon. What makes me laugh is
how British media tries to set itself apart by openly 'spotting' propaganda
for us grateful (ie. stupid, in their eyes) people. Reports from inside
Baghdad were, up until the 'fall', always preceded be caveats describing the
monitoring by Iraqi authorities - thereby implying that there is always some
truth that isn't allowed to be revealed, and that the home reporting is the
height of impartiality. Media 'access' to the war is allowed on terms set by
the military - whichever side - and yet 'we' happily forget that.
"arms to the enemy scandals"
- as an arms manufacturer, GB has a great track record in this; even the
ships of the Spanish Armada used English-made guns.
"wars fought for capitalist gain"
- we in the UK have an ideal and unique position from which to criticise,
advise, or even assist US cultural and military colonialism. After all,
we've been tinkering with world imperialism since the C16th.
My thoughts on this is that we're encouraged to believe that all wars are
fought along very simple lines of good and evil - preferably with an easy
comparison to the Second World War, whose mitigation is (retrospectively)
impossible to refute. If you can connect the motives to that conflict, as
many pro-War have tried to do, then all the better.
WWII was, in my opinion, a rarity, since all wars are fought for economic or
political gain, and most are colonial, but only WWII revealed such easily
identifiable ideological factors.
"new type of media war"
- I've seen conflicting accounts of media access, ranging from exclamations
of 'unprecedented access' (eg. embedding) to accusations of blackout or
propaganda. It's as if the Spanish - American, Great War, Spanish Civil War,
WWII, Vietnam, Grenada, and the Gulf War, didn't happen. All set precedents
in media access and coverage which, um, precede this operation, and all or
most have had accusations of propaganda flung around them. Why do we forget?
"clean war/dirty war"
- apart from the basic problem with the notion of a 'clean war', the US and
the UK have fairly good records in 'clean wars'; that is, if 'clean wars'
means wars which can easily be 'cleaned up' by myth-making. A great example
of this is Clint Eastwood's laughable _Heartbreak Ridge_, which manages to
roll issues of Vietnam and Korea into a 'victory' in Grenada in which
American students are rescued and no hospitals are bombed. Funnily enough,
Channel 5 just broadcast it two or three days before the invasion of Iraq.
This brings me back to your (Michael's) excellent diatribe against the
'toppling of the statue of Saddam'. Not only was it covered live on TV and
radio (a near hysterical Raggeh Omar), but the newspapers and TV immediately
turned it into a 'knowing' recognition of a metonymic moment. On the one
hand TV did what it always does - it looked for a visual equivalent of a
soundbite - but also it reported as if to a knowing audience that would see
it for what it is, but accept it as significant nonetheless. I think Barthes
called that 'inoculation'.
The media is full of these myth-making moments, and they're both formulaic
and powerful. A few years ago, we all argued over Joe Rosenthal's famous
image of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. Despite being a rehearsed act (the
'original' raising of the flag was photographed by Bob Campbell, but wasn't
as dramatic as the restaged image), it's still the model for statues, and
even became the subject of a film.
We've seen similar images of flag raising after 9/11, and at the 'taking' of
Um Qasr. The toppling of Saddam's statue has been rehearsed many times, and
it's an old rhetoric.
The question remains, then, for me, 'why is this type of imagery still
powerful enough for the media to carry it, and for people to believe it?'
Damian
on 11/4/03 8:14 AM, Michael Chanan at [log in to unmask] wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Marxist Cultural Network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Priyamvada Gopal
Sent: 10 April 2003 17:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fwd: [foil] Historic moment? More Amerikkkan Bull$hit!
Subject: [foil] Historic moment? More Amerikkkan Bull$hit!
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 09:30:40 -0400
The so-called "historic moment" of Saddam's statue being pulled down was
staged by the invaders. There were no huge crowds of Iraqis cheering as
claimed: mostly US soldiers (who incidentally first wrapped a US flag on the
top and then later replaced it with an Iraqi flag - don't want the natives
to think they're being colonized eh!?) and "dozens" of Iraqis (BBC). This
image will be used to build the myth of "liberation" that should NOT be
allowed to take hold--this war is an illegal colonial invasion that will be
resisted by the Iraqi people, who even if they hate Saddam, are not going to
accept being colonial subjects. See the picture and read details here:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=55268&group=webcast
<http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=55268&group=webcast>
!
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