The Gulf War: Misinformation, Media and Propaganda
By Carolina Valdés-Hevia.
“It is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities, and that in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond.”
-Walter Lippmann
Psychological Operations (PSYOP) are planned operations with their main objective being the transmission of information to a selected public in order to impact and control their emotions, attitude, thinking, behaviour and decision making. When the goal is set on misinformation, the process is mainly done through oral communication and the media (radio, television, newspapers, posters, leaflets…). During the period from 1990 and 1991, the Gulf War, codenamed as operation Desert Shield and operation Desert Storm, took place triggered by Iraq’s attack with the intention of invading Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The UN immediately responded by imposing economic sanctions, but it wasn’t until November 29 that they finally abandoned their diplomatic solutions through a new resolution that allowed the use of force. As a result, a coalition force composed by 34 nations, led by the United States, engaged into war. One year later, the situation ended up with the Iraqi forces abandoning Kuwait due to the hostilities and a high loss of human lives [1].
However, these facts only scratch the surface of the conflict: apart from attacks, bombings and battles, a much more internal and psychological warfare was going on, which, nowadays, is still subject of an important controversy. This essay will explain the different ways the United States operated to influence on people’s minds, creating an important effect on their own citizens and in the rest of the occidental culture.
To understand this last affirmation, we will first have to take a look at the definition of public opinion. The American writer and journalist Walter Lippmann studied this, focusing on the self-perceptions we have that influence the way we act in the society. In his theory he states that the environment that surrounds us is far too complicated for us to understand it in its entirety, so we create a fiction that will simplify the reality in our mind. This is called pseudo-environment, and we experience it through the images we create in our head. These stereotypes make up the public opinion, and the problem lies in the fact that this public opinion doesn’t actually correspond with the world outside. During the Gulf War, the United States clearly took advantage of this set of stereotypes that the occidental culture had created for themselves, using misinformation in order to manipulate the public opinion and use it as a tool in their favour [2].
In this war, PSYOP were introduced through a massive television campaign all over the world. For the first time the allied force could show their weapon accuracy and direct war scenes. Newspapers also broadcasted the war, although in the US the access to the information for the journalists was actually limited and highly influenced by the military opinion. This can be clearly seen in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch in which they exposed the role of the media in a comic way [3]. It’s also important to put emphasis on how the news and images of the war were spontaneously transmitted via satellite. The main commercial television networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) described the war as a “marvel” or a “wonderful job” and some shows were even paid off to make specific jokes or assertions. As an example, in the news they used to mention the lack of American civilian deaths, whereas the truth was that, behind that fact, they were hiding all the Iraqi deaths they had caused. They used human-interest stories to touch the American population, who was very sensitive to casualties [4].
A famous story is the fraudulent testimony of Nayirah, the fifteen year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, who pretended to have volunteered in a Kuwaiti hospital and, in tears, said: “While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die”. During the following months, many senators used her testimony to back up the war, as well as George Bush and the UN Security Council. Millions of Americans saw the images that night on television, but lately the human rights investigators discovered no evidence of the story everyone had fallen for [5].
Other means of influence were the organization “Citizens for a free Kuwait”, paid by the Kuwaiti Government, the distribution of propagandistic books on how the Iraqi made suffer the US soldiers in the war, and the “Free Kuwait” t-shirts, videotapes and speakers installed for example in college campuses [6].
There was, nevertheless, alternative media, whose activity consisted on providing information, opinions against the war and denouncing the censorship. Some notable sources were the ten-hour series called “The Gulf Crisis TV Project”, “Paper Tiger Television West”, local media outlets and the organisation “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting” (FAIR).
From this last organisation, Martin A. Lee, an author and activist specialized on terrorism, war, media and politics, also full-time editor of FAIR’s magazine, explained the reason behind the media bias. Journalists didn’t want to alienate the powerful sources because they were afraid of being censored or limited, and so they avoided going against the tide or denying the official version of the facts. With that objective in mind, public authorities rewarded “good journalists” with a high reputation, prestige and an access to the “best” sources. That is why in many journals and magazines people could read titles such as: “The New Science of War/High-Tech Hardware: How Many Lives Can it Save?” (Referring to Stealth Bombers) [7].
Finally the result went as planned, and Kuwait ended up free from Iraq, becoming an important ally to the US. In April 1901, the UN Security Council enforced the Resolution 687 to establish a cease-fire between the countries [8].
This brief essay is another example of how psychology has been used with the purpose of defeating the enemy, which is actually a technique that has already been used from a long time (Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind”). Nonetheless, it never reached such a worldwide mediatized diffusion as this time nor involved these many lies. It’s also a true example of the importance of information, integrity in media and the right to be well informed, which is a basic requisite in order to maintain democracy. Another conclusion drawn from this last affirmation is that the liberation of Kuwait is still in doubt as, according to the CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) in the early 1990’s, it’s the second ranked country in imprisonment, torture and cruelty towards journalists just after China (which is reasonably alerting seeing the obvious difference in population). Due to the Al-Sabah family, Kuwait’s democracy has been completely suppressed, intimidating and censoring journalists, and hiring foreigners to do the physical work under poor conditions that push the limits of slavery[9]. Also, Hussein was left on power, the reasons still being unclear, but some debatable theories state that they did because of the oil, for selling weapons, to keep their logistic bases and to get money from the recovery of the devastated places.
Reference list:
[1] History.com Staff (2009). Persian Gulf War. History.com.
[2] Lippmann, W. (1922). Public Opinion.
[3] Davis, T. & O’Brien, C. (Writers). (1991). Desert Storm Press Briefing. (Saturday Night Live Broadcast).
[4] Naureckas, J. (1991, April 1). Gulf War Coverage. The Worst Censorship Was at Home. Extra!
[5] Gregory, M. (Director). (1992). To sell a war. (CBC Television Broadcast).
[6] Naureckas, J. (1991, April 1). Gulf War Coverage. The Worst Censorship Was at Home. Extra!
[7] Lee, M. A., & Solomon, N. (1991) Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media.
[8] History.com Staff (2009). Persian Gulf War. History.com.
[9] MacArthur, J.R. (1992). Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War.
