The Daily Grasshopper

For those who remain unconvinced that we need to go to war against Iraq immediately, you will no doubt be relieved to know that Bush & Co. are working overtime - and spending your hard-earned tax dollars - to win your support for military action in the Persian Gulf (and possibly North Korea - stay tuned). Fresh off of his speech to the U.N. last Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell stood with President Bush at the White House on Thursday while the latter laid down the law for Saddam Hussein (and a whole lot of Iraqi civilians, incidentally). A photo of the event ran in today's New York Times, accompanying a story entitled, "War Public Relations Machine Is Put on Full Throttle." If you want to read about the administration's full-court press to whip up war fever, the article is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/politics/09MEMO.html

What's startling (at least to me) is how brazen and up-front they are about 1) the need to sell this war to the American people, and 2) how similar the approach is to selling cars, or soap, or Hollywood blockbusters. Read this description of the campaign, including an astonishingly frank quote from Dan Bartlett, White House communications director:

"The public relations campaign, coordinated by the White House communications office and the National Security Council, has included carefully timed speeches by Mr. Bush and his war council, a close monitoring of public opinion polls and the use of television in crucial markets to spread the administration's message across the country.

On Thursday, the same day Mr. Bush appeared in the Roosevelt Room to say "the game is over" and put his imprimatur on Mr. Powell's United Nations remarks, the White House directed the top two officials at the Pentagon to give an unusual series of interviews underscoring Mr. Powell's case.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld spoke to anchors at the ABC television affiliate in Los Angeles, the Fox affiliate in Chicago, the NBC affiliate in Seattle and the CBS affiliate in Minneapolis. The No. 2 official at the Pentagon, Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the administration's biggest hawks on Iraq, gave interviews to local television anchors in New York, Cleveland and San Francisco. On Wednesday night, Ms. Rice made the case in appearances on CNN's "Larry King Live" and ABC's "Nightline."

"We knew there was going to have to be a steady escalation of public appearances and speeches and comments about the nature of the threat," said Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director."

So there you have the administration basically admitting that they need to consistently reinforce their pro-war message with the American people. And so Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Colin Powell have all reported for duty, appearing on TV news shows in specially-targeted media markets to bolster the citizenry's support for war. And although the article reports that the intercepted message between the Iraqi officers that was the centerpiece of Powell's U.N. presentation was shared with Bush on December 21, it was left to Powell to publicly unveil it. Why? Because the White House has done polling that shows that Powell is more credible than Bush. Again, Dan Bartlett, on the subject of the Secretary of State:

"The bottom line is, [Powell]'s a strategic asset."

And how about this little gem of a revelation? "White House officials leaned on Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, to be tough when he gave his Jan. 27 report to the United Nations on Iraq's cooperation." It's always nice when you can tilt the playing field a little in your favor, isn't it? It sort of makes you wonder which countries the U.S. will "lean on" to get another Security Council resolution authorizing a military strike on Iraq...

The Boston Herald, our local right-wing tabloid, also has a story about the PR push to war. In fact, they're happy to do their share to further the cause, devoting the first five or six pages of today's paper to stories with titles like "U.S. readies lethal blow," "Proud and prepared, Marines set to rumble," and "On the Firing Line: Marines prepare to blast through Iraq." Then there's this little piece, on page 4: "Experts: War support growing, but public needs info."

So we see that people are beginning to buckle under the massive pro-war propaganda offensive, but that they just need a little MORE of it before we're "set to rumble." You can read the story here:

http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/international/anal02092003.htm

Those wacky Americans! How can two-thirds of them still be insisting on giving the weapons inspectors more time (according to the CBS poll)? Don't they know "the game is over"? The President himself already told us so - best to just sit back and get ready for the live CNN feed from Baghdad of the "3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours."

What's that, you say? You hadn't heard about the massive air strikes that are going to kick off the Second Gulf War? Today's Herald gives us all the facts. This comes from the "U.S. readies lethal blow" article:

"If and when combat operations begin, the armed forces of the United States will launch a military strike in Iraq so overwhelming in its air, ground and sea components that the dazed and disabled Iraqi military will be neutralized in days, says William J. Taylor Jr., a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The air campaign, which lasted nearly two months in 1991 before ground troops were introduced, reportedly will run only 48 hours, but 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles will shower key Iraqi targets from some 500 warplanes - 10 times the munitions that fell on Iraq in the first two days 12 years ago.

Up to 900 cruise missiles reportedly will be launched in the first two days of any assault, more than during the entire Desert Storm conflict. Military leaders will be targeted so that Iraqi field officers will have no superiors to turn to for orders.

The overpowering strategy aims to be lethal, destroying military forces, and demoralizing, convincing Iraqi citizens with AK-47s strapped to their shoulders that resisting allied firepower is not just ill-advised but suicidal.

Possibly even before the bombs fall, U.S. and British airborne and Special Forces troops will make lightning assaults to secure Iraq's precious southern oil fields and seize key airfields, missile-launch sites and other important targets deep in Iraq."

You can read the whole thing here:

http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/international/plan02092003.htm

The massive bombardment of Baghdad is part of a strategy called "Shock and Awe." The particulars of it, including a truly jaw-dropping explanation by a guy named Harlan Ullman (who admiringly compares it to the bombing of Hiroshima) have been flying around on the Internet for about a week and a half now. It's been picked up on by a few people, notably Dan Kennedy, a reporter and media critic for our local alternative weekly, the Boston Phoenix. But beyond that, the "Shock and Awe" strategy doesn't get too much ink or screen time - for what I hope are obvious reasons. When you're planning to commit war crimes of this scale, you don't want to be seen gloating about it beforehand. You really should find out about this plan for yourself, though. After all, it's being done in our names, to "liberate the Iraqi people." Naturally, we're going to have to bomb them all to hell to liberate them, but that doesn't seem to concern the wise men (and one woman) leading the "War Public Relations Machine" (none of whom, with the exception of Powell, has ever served their country in battle). Kennedy's Media Logs on the subject of "Shock and Awe" can be found here (and are well worth reading):

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/medialog/2003_01_26_archive.asp#88271074
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/medialog/2003_02_02_archive.asp#88425095

The people of Germany appear not to be getting the administration's message. Between ten and fifteen thousand of them turned out to greet Donald Rumsfeld in Munich yesterday, where he was addressing an international security conference. The front page of the New York Times shows protesters holding a giant banner that says "No war, Mr. Rumsfeld." All that means is that it's time to turn up the PR machine another notch, or maybe just "lean on" Germany a little bit.

Those of us who haven't fallen for the administration's case, though, need to keep speaking up, speaking out, and questioning what we're being told by the "War Public Relations Machine." Because we certainly have heard a lot about the evils Saddam Hussein has committed against the Iraqi people (many of them committed with full U.S. support, but you won't hear about that too much). What we haven't heard, and what the PR machine won't be operating at "full throttle" to tell us, are the horrors that will be visited upon the people of Iraq when Operation Shock and Awe lands its "lethal blow."