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Mass Media and its Effects on Just War Criteria in the Gulf War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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It is often claimed that high technology won the Gulf War for the allies. However, a careful analysis of the ways in which the mass media was controlled after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would clearly indicate that it was not just technology which gave the allies their victory, but also the skillful media manipulationmedia. At the very outset of this article I would like to make it clear that not only the allies but the Iraqis themselves were guilty of media manipulation. Saddam Hussein used the media first of all to convince the predominantly Islamic Iraqi people that they were waging a Holy War’ against the western infidel. He attempted to portray the war as a religious affair, a cause of Allah’, hoping both to tap the resources of religious feeling throughout the Islamic world and to draw on the political capital of Muslims in the Middle East. Throughout the crisis he did not hesitate to match the tone of his rhetoric with that of President Bush.
When the allies began their air attacks on Iraq on January 17, Saddam informed the nation that the enemy had declared war, by using the phrase: ‘the mother of all battles has begun !’ He assured his people, in graphic terms, that the enemy would be burned alive and buried in the desert sands. Throughout the war the Iraqi people were never given an accurate picture of events at the front.
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- Copyright © 1992 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Jonathan Alter and others, ‘The Propaganda War’, Newsweek, 25 February, 1991, pp. 30–31
2 cited in Robert Dodaro OSA, ‘Pirates or Superpowers: Reading Augustine in a Hall of Mirrors’, New Blackfriars, January, 1991 p. 10 cf. also Hodgkin, ‘Miscalculations that brought war: what now ?’. The Tablet, 26 January, 1991 p. 103.
3 Hodgkin, ‘Miscalculations that brought war: what now?’The Tablet, 26 January, 1991 p. 103
4 ibid.
5 cf Mark Whitaker and others, ‘Avoiding the Next Crisis’, Newsweek, 11 March, 1991 p. 43.
6 quoted in Anthony Lewis, ‘Docile Media Hawked the Official View of the War’, International Herald Tribune, 7 May 1991.
7 Khor Kok Peng, ‘Brutal End to Gulf War Leaves Unanswered Questions’, Christian Worker May 1991, p. 22
8 In a television interview a retired but influential Italian cardinal asked “Why there had been such a strong reaction when Iraq invaded Kuwait, but none when Syria ate Lebanon”The Tablet 26 January 1991 p. 111.
9 Kenneth L. Woodward, ‘Ancient Theory and Modern War’. Newsweek 11 February 1991 p. 31. In this article President Bush was quoted as saying: ‘The war in the gulf is not a Christian war, a Jewish war or a Muslim war. It is a just war.’
10 Kevin T. Kelly, ‘Christians and Linkage’. The Month February 1991 p. 67.
11 Bruce Kent, ‘The UN and the War’. The Tablet 9 March, 1991.
12 ibid., cf. a letter by the same author in The Tablet, 23 February, 1991 p. 238.
13 The US Air Force Chief of Staff, General Merril A. McPeak was quoted in an article in The International Herald Tribune 24 March, 1991 p. 1, entitled ‘Desert Mirages: In The War, ’Things Weren't Always What They Seemed'.
14 Ibid.
15 The International Herald Tribune, 24 March, 1991 p. 1
16 Russell Watson and others ‘After the Storm’Newsweek p. 16 gives a table of US fatalities and quotes General Schwarzkopf as saying that, by any measure, the low rate of American casualties was ‘almost miraculous’.
17 John Keegan, ‘Judging the United States’, The Tablet, 11 May, 1991, p. 573
18 Jonathan Alter and others, ‘The Propaganda War’Newsweek, February 25, 1991 p. 12.
19 John Barry and Douglas Waller, ‘What Really Happened’, Newsweek, 25, 1991, p. 12 February.
20 Barton Gellman, ‘Desert Mirages: In the War, Things Weren't Always What They Seemed’, International Herald Tribune, 18 March, 1991 p. 4.
21 Barton Gellman, ‘Gulf Air War's Larger Target’. International Herald Tribune, 24 June, 1991, p. 3.
22 ibid.
23 ibid.
24 ibid.
25 cf. Gilbert Márkus, ‘Comment’New Blackfriars, February, 1991 p. 55.
26 Garrett, Thomas M., ‘Manipulation and Mass Media’, Concilium, no 7. May 1971, p. 57–62Google Scholar.
27 Jonathan Alter and others, Op cit., p. 30.
28 Murray, J.C., We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections On The American Proposition, (New York, 1960), p. 270Google Scholar.
29 Robert Dodaro O.S.A., ‘Pirates or Superpowers. Reading Augustine in a Hall of Mirrors’. New Blackfriars, January, 1991, p. 17.
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