The Strategic Corporal vs. The Strategic Cameraman

[tequila]

I suspect you are right - at least as far as Iraq is concerned. Then again, the clamor for withdrawal is pretty load right now anyway. Hmm, maybe I'm just in a vicious mood, but how does the following strike you
[camera pan to bodies and destroyed property littering a local marketplace]Today, the irhabi fighters of Al Quaida sent a message to Iraq. We want the Iraqi people to have another message from the Coalition
[camera pan to school shots, reconstruction work, etc.]
[split camera with destruction on one side and school children on the other]
Iraqs future is up to you
We can stay [screen fade to school children shot]
Or go
[screen fade to image of body lying on ground]
The choice is yours

Is this IO aimed at the United States population or the population of Iraq?

If aimed at the U.S. population, I think it founders on two main points. (1) Generally speaking, Americans do not care about the death of foreigners. If given the choice between having American soldiers blown up and Iraqi civilians blown up, Americans will pick the second every time. (2) The message acknowledges the success of irhabi terrorism in striking repeatedly despite the presence of American troops. It feeds the narrative that Americans are dying without being able to prevent terrorism.

If aimed at the population of Iraq, it will have difficulties because it does not take into account the fracturing of the Iraqi population into very disparate media audiences, who will likely interpret such a message in very different ways.

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

Is this IO aimed at the United States population or the population of Iraq?

I was thinking of it more for the North American audience. Then again, it was only a very rough cut .

If aimed at the U.S. population, I think it founders on two main points. (1) Generally speaking, Americans do not care about the death of foreigners. If given the choice between having American soldiers blown up and Iraqi civilians blown up, Americans will pick the second every time.

Hmmm, I would, tentatively, agree with your second point, but I would disagree with your first one. I think that there is a large segment of the American population that does care about foreign deaths. As evidence of that belief, I'll point to the massive amounts of money that have been raised over the years for disaster relief.

Having said that, I think you are right about the relative weighting of American vs. "foreign" lives. Put the way you did, I would agree. At the same time, there are certainly sufficient historical precedents for Americans supporting operations that may cost American lives but will, at the same time, reduce "foreign" suffering. I honestly don't know if that motivation would work after 4 years of war in Iraq.

(2) The message acknowledges the success of irhabi terrorism in striking repeatedly despite the presence of American troops. It feeds the narrative that Americans are dying without being able to prevent terrorism.

Yes, it does. At the same time, it contests the narrative of despair that is currently being pushed by not abandoning the IO field to the irhabi and their opportunistic allies. Look, part of my thinking in all of this is pretty long term and contingency based. Let's suppose that we don't contest the IO field; what then? Basically, the Coalition will probably be forced to pull out of Iraq within 12-18 months and of Afghanistan within 24 - basically loosing both wars. If we do contest it, then we might stay longer, which increases the likelihood of winning (obviously no guarantees).

If we win, great, but what if, even with contesting the IO field, we loose? Think back to the aftermath of Vietnam and its effects on the US military. Giveb a "loss" scenario, what is better for the military: a scenario where the IO war was fought, or one where it wasn't?

I'm certainly not saying that the script I tossed up is a magic bullet or that a properly conducted IO campaign is one either. What I am saying is that if such a campaign isn't even attempted, then the potential repercussions are rather grim.

Marc

[tequila]

First off, I suppose I am against IO campaigns done by the military on the American population in general. I think that military-run IO ops aimed at the American population will, in the long run, only destroy the American population's faith in the military as a truth-telling institution. The military as an institution must remain both apolitical and subordinate to civilian control at all costs --- it cannot advocate its own policies to a civilian audience.

The responsibility lies with the civilian political authority that chooses and advocates a particular war policy. If the President cannot make a convincing case, then frankly I have a hard time supporting the idea that a war, especially a foreign war, must be fought against the countervailing will of the American people.

Think back to the aftermath of Vietnam and its effects on the US military. Giveb a "loss" scenario, what is better for the military: a scenario where the IO war was fought, or one where it wasn't?

I doubt that the repercussions of a withdrawal from Iraq will be similar in their institutional effects on the American military. The U.S. as a whole was undergoing wrenching transitions at all levels, and the military was no exception --- such a transition was ongoing while the military was still engaged in Vietnam. Today's military is professionalized and will IMO not encounter the same issues with regards to indiscipline and breakdown as occurred then. The principle damage, IMO, will occur in further disintegration of trust between civilian leadership and the military.

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

First off, I suppose I am against IO campaigns done by the military on the American population in general. I think that military-run IO ops aimed at the American population will, in the long run, only destroy the American population's faith in the military as a truth-telling institution.

Okay, I can certainly understand that position. Maybe, as a Canadian, I am more used to being bombarded by government propaganda . Personally, I wouldn't advocate a campaign that lied or distorted the truth, but I don't really see much wrong with a campaign that gives its best guess as to what will happen.

The responsibility lies with the civilian political authority that chooses and advocates a particular war policy. If the President cannot make a convincing case, then frankly I have a hard time supporting the idea that a war, especially a foreign war, must be fought against the countervailing will of the American people.

On that, I do agree with you. I have to wonder, however, how effective the "civilian political authority" can be in this current age of 'net based media and "instant gratification". Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but I have serious doubts about he way we (aka democracies) have traditionally measured the "will of the people". Given what I am seeing going on south of the border (aka in the US ), I think if the issue of us electing our senate comes up, I will campaign strongly against it.

I doubt that the repercussions of a withdrawal from Iraq will be similar in their institutional effects on the American military. The U.S. as a whole was undergoing wrenching transitions at all levels, and the military was no exception --- such a transition was ongoing while the military was still engaged in Vietnam. Today's military is professionalized and will IMO not encounter the same issues with regards to indiscipline and breakdown as occurred then. The principle damage, IMO, will occur in further disintegration of trust between civilian leadership and the military.

Hmmm, I don't think we would see the same problems re: indiscipline and general breakdown. I do agree that it would probably increase the level of institutional mistrust. What is leading me to the conclusion that not attempting such a campaign would have disastrous effects on the military is, strangely enough, the problems with retention and the disaffection with many senior officers.

Marc

[tequila]

Personally, I wouldn't advocate a campaign that lied or distorted the truth, but I don't really see much wrong with a campaign that gives its best guess as to what will happen.

Historical evidence indicates that lies inevitably seep into any public relations campaign. Even simple error would inevitably be seen as and would be indistinguishable from outright deceit in the eyes of the public.

I have to wonder, however, how effective the "civilian political authority" can be in this current age of 'net based media and "instant gratification". Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but I have serious doubts about he way we (aka democracies) have traditionally measured the "will of the people". Given what I am seeing going on south of the border (aka in the US ), I think if the issue of us electing our senate comes up, I will campaign strongly against it.

Today's media environment is polarized and segmented, but this is hardly rare in American history. We have returned, in a way, to the earlier days of the Republic when there were far fewer institutional controls on media. This is, I believe, a relatively healthy development. The bully pulpit of the Presidency still commands a megaphone, but must make a far more convincing argument nowadays than in previous times. That this Administration has pissed away its moral authority, frankly, is its own fault and not that of either the mediaspace or the American people.

As for the inherent faults of democracy, it's the worst system but all the others. But then you Canadian bootlickers did choose the happy slavery of the British Crown when it counted, so maybe you haven't absorbed that lesson properly?

What is leading me to the conclusion that not attempting such a campaign would have disastrous effects on the military is, strangely enough, the problems with retention and the disaffection with many senior officers.

Hmmm, I doubt we'd see any worse retention problems than if we stayed in Iraq another five years. Imagine the issues when today's lieutenants and captains begin coming up on their 5th or 6th tour, and the Marines start going back for the seventh or eighth time?

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

As for the inherent faults of democracy, it's the worst system but all the others. But then you Canadian bootlickers did choose the happy slavery of the British Crown when it counted, so maybe you haven't absorbed that lesson properly?

I'm booking off for the night, but I couldn't let this one pass .

What can I say but "Sigh". We believe in democracy tempered by tradition rather than the blatant mobocracy that seems to run rampant in some countries . When it comes to lessons in democracy, all I can say is that it's to bad you folks revolted before you could have more than two parties .

Marc

[Tom Odom]

you folks revolted

Who you calling revolting?

Check your pockets, Tequila, you might have a spy coin or two slipped in...

Marc and Jon,

I thought about all of this last evening.

Here is where I see your IO not achieving its noble aims: that it will not move the Amrican public when it comes to keeping troops on the ground or spending MORE money. That last point is critical; you cited disaster relief as a prompter for donations. It is but it works because it is not constant. Iraq regardless of viewpoint has been constant since 2002 (yes 2002 not 2003). Disasters flare up and pocket books open; Iraq has gone well beyond that stage.

The other point is one Tequilla also stated above; that foreigners dying compared to Americans dying is a distant second or third tier concern. Look at the Virgininia Tech killings and compare the numbers to the Iraquis whoe were killed that same day--I believe that was the day VBIEDs took some 150-180 in Baghdad. Virginia Tech drowned all that out.

Look at Rwanda where there was accurate news coverage showing the slaughter and we did not act. It lasted 100 days and later we appologized--although we virtually ignored the larger slaughter that still affects the Congo.

Again I trully appreciate the motivation and the goals. I am sceptical of the results.

Tom

[Cori]

Two very quick pts (sorry to have been out of the conversation; it's commencement weekend here, and a bit crazy.) And again I apologize for my failures re. the quote function. First, I agree that there are real concerns regarding the military running an explicit IO campaign in an attempt to persuade the American people. I know PAOs who are absolutely adamant that the line between IO and PA must be an absolutely bright one because otherwise PA loses its credibility, but that might be somewhat "inside baseball," I'm not sure the public will make that distinction -- all they'll know is that people in uniform are advocating a position. I don't have a good answer for that (yet), beyond keeping this to the informal channels such as YouTube, where, of course, material is seen by fewer people unless a particular video either "goes virual" or is picked up by the mainstream media.

Second, what about foreign casualties? I think the evidence is mixed. On the one hand, opinion polling suggests that the American public finds foreign casualties less of a check against rationales for military operations -- they care more about American combat casualties in determining whether an operation would be a good idea, and in deciding whether an operation is no longer justified -- but that doesn't mean they don't care at all. The idea that there is some kind of "CNN effect," that they'll see certain kinds of images on TV and "demand that the government do something" is completely overblown on the other hand, but that doesn't mean that they can't be convinced that humanitarian military operations are justified (although it is harder to justify American combat operations in such a context.) With Rwanda, the pictures weren't enough (given how sanitized they were, particularly) in a context where the government was making every possible effort to avoid arguing for an intervention, up to and including orders being issued to the White House staff that "the g word" (ie "genoicde) not be uttered in relation to what was happening.

Here's what's interesting: remember I made the point that images of death were heavily sanitized in the American press. Now, that obviously cuts both ways. It means we don't see American casualties, but we also don't see the real price of terrorism -- we see the burning cars after a VBIED is detonated, but not the bodies of the civilian casualties that result. What if we did? Are we sure that Americans would be more likely to demand a swift pull-out? Historically, Americans have justified their participation in wars as going to the defense of the weak. Who's to say that such images wouldn't totally galvanize the public, (given the proper narrative frames, of course) reminding us of the nature of the enemy we fight. I argued that pictures of dead enemy would backfire. I'm not as sure pictures of dead victims would, particularly in Mark's little clip, where they're contrasted with pictures of what we bring -- schools, and healthcare, and hope. I mean, just who are the real occupiers here?

The key is to avoid a narrative where the cause of the violence is sectarianism, and to focus on the narrative where the deaths have been caused by other impulses (not that hard, after all.) The narrative that says it's "just" sectarian violence is read as a narrative of futility, a parallel to one that was argued during the Balkans -- it's a shorthand for an argument that says, look, these guys have been at this for who knows how many generations (even if they haven't been), it's something we Americans will never hope to understand, and can never stop, so what are we doing in the middle of it? The failure here, from an IO perspective, has been the failure to explain AQI's merry little campaign to stoke the flames, their involvement as quite active players in the sectarian side of the violence.

And with that, I'm off to my research assistant's commissioning, and various commencement events.

[Merv Benson]

Cori writes:

... I know PAOs who are absolutely adamant that the line between IO and PA must be an absolutely bright one because otherwise PA loses its credibility, but that might be somewhat "inside baseball," I'm not sure the public will make that distinction -- all they'll know is that people in uniform are advocating a position. I don't have a good answer for that (yet), beyond keeping this to the informal channels such as YouTube, where, of course, material is seen by fewer people unless a particular video either "goes virual" or is picked up by the mainstream media.

This reminds me of the guy on the night compass march who did not want to pull his partner out of a hole he tripped into because he feared losing his azimuth. (Hey, it really happened.)

The enemy has said that half his war effort is in the media battle space and we are not engaging. If PA is worried about losing credibility, why not be worried about the country losing credibility in the war instead, because of our failure to develop a response to the enemy media campaign.

[Cori]

Well, the reason it's so important to keep PA firewalled from IO is because, although this might be "inside baseball" to the public, as I argued, it isn't to the press. It's the PAOs who deal with the press, and there can't be any sense that they are engaging in advocacy, IO campaigns, spin, etc. etc., because then they lose credibility with the press. And there is a pretty good argument that if the PAOs don't have credibility with the press then whatever else is going on in "the media battle," you're in trouble. I know there's a great deal of criticism of the press (I engage in a good deal of it myself) but the best reporters on the military beat have good relationships with the PAOs, both will generally tell you. Those relationships center on trust, going both ways. PAOs have to be "purer than Caesar's wife," in a sense, in this regard, so that if they say, for ex., no, we don't think there were civilians in that building we just hit, the press take that seriously and don't question it because they know those same guys are also involved in IO campaigns, also wearing IO hats. That's the argument, and I think it's a pretty good one, or at least it's one I don't have a particularly compelling answer to myself.

[SoiCowboy]

Just some thoughts:

1) The enemy has a natural understanding of how to use the media whereas the United States military does not.

2) The media is naturally attracted to 'if it bleeds, it leads' because thats what sells rather than 'well dug in africa'.

3) The insurgency in iraq has effectively managed most, but not all the big Western media by kidnappings, etc, limiting them to reporting from the green zone or embedding.

4) Anything the US military says or the US government is treated like propaganda, even if its correct the media is unlikely as a whole to endorse it because they don't want to be seen as stooges of the government, and the medias natural sympathys is towards the underdog terrorists because they can provide news that bleeds.

5) There is a perception in the West that war can be clean and sanitized, and this is mainly down to the very successful media operations of Gulf War 1 showing surgical missile strikes.

6) Most feedback is negative. If you ever run a business, you'll always hear when somethings gone wrong, never when things go right. This is probably part of being human and is going to reflect in the media uploaded onto the internet. The 7/7 bombings had a media cycle of detanation -> recorded by mobiles - > uploaded / passed onto the media in what 30 minutes? The terrorists are always going to be setting the media agenda.

7) The only pro-goverment line that is accepted and rewarded is the insider doing a blog or the like on the internet because it is felt that they are 'the real deal'. Problem is their impact is always going to be less than the 'pro-terrorist' message of the other side.

Just some thoughts. What do you think?

[120mm]

Appears accurate, but I would add that, as less and less civilians serve their country as soldiers, due to the professionalization of the military, as well as the military representing less and less the mainstream of America, the more likely they are to believe what is reported in the media, vis-a-vis the military, no matter how incorrect that reporting may be. In fact, the lack of military service within the media will guarantee that media reporting will always be inaccurate.

[tequila]

Iraqi Interior Ministry bans video and photos of bombing scenes.

[milesce]

...It means we don't see American casualties, but we also don't see the real price of terrorism -- we see the burning cars after a VBIED is detonated, but not the bodies of the civilian casualties that result. What if we did?

I think you are on to something important here. One of the few times the mainstream media has given wide coverage to actual bodies in this war was when the four private contractors's bodies were attacked in Falluja in '04. People were outraged.

Most of the footage I see now, on youtube and elsewhere -- seems to imply one of two things:

a) senseless slaughter -- on the part of US forces.
b) US troops riding around getting blown up

I don't see the message getting out about what the terrorists are doing to ordinary Iraqi people, not in a way people can relate to.

[Cori]

Actually, that's a very interesting example. It's one of the only iconic images that most people wouldn't actually recognize, because (like the Mogadishu images) media outlets believed it's newsvalue trumped the fact that it was so disturbing, and so chose to run it, but unlike those images, they almost all altered it in some fashion, cropping it or pixellating it, so that very few people saw the same version of the image. This article:

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/report...71-74V58N2.pdf

includes a chart of which outlets showed which version of the image.

[Rockbridge]

The real challenge faced by the strategic cameraman is that if you're too good at your job, you become a threat to the civilian media, which takes great exception to having an important piece of footage released if they didn't produce it. The operation to rescue Jessica Lynch was meticulously videographed, with footage being released less than 18 hours after the operation. However, the entire event was defamed by the media as being another "Capricorn One." The bottom line is that if the military's news releases don't fit with the media's agenda, they either don't get air time or get "spun" as being self-promoting propaganda.

[Combat.medic06]

There is alot of good that can come out of a soldier posting videos of missions/ training of indiginous forces. Most americans feel that they are being sheltered by the Government (therefore trust issues with elected officials) if say a certain military website were to willingly post all types of videos to better assist personnel on tactics and training, but also allow the average joe access to it I think Americans would feel more secure. I believe they would feel more like they were recieving the full picture. I don't know about you but, I know numerous people who find themselves up late night surfing U Tube looking for new military videos mostly because they are curious and have a feeling that our White House is hiding the facts from them (they are right). I know when journalist's were folowing our MiTT That we were not allowed to say much or show them anything..... As far as driving back and forth taking hits in Iraq. I also volunteered to medically cover Fuel and supply convoys before and after being on my MiTT, and Medevaced quite a few soldiers due to explosions and accidents. The average joe needs to see that and also needs to see how that fuel and those supplies help not only soldiers but the surrounding villages and comunities. America needs the full story, if Washington ever hopes to get the support they need from the American people to make it another seven years for stabilization.