The Problem of Selling a War

by Mary Shepard, WAMM

How could the U.S. public, proud of its self-image as a law-abiding nation, be persuaded to accept a military action that completely disregarded international laws and treaties, the U.S. Constitution, and the North Atlantic Treaty--all without any debate by their representatives in Congress?

The U.S./NATO war against Yugoslavia was not the first war imposed on the U.S. people independent of their will. The propaganda strategy to sustain such foreign policy is, by now, well-practiced: precede military action with media reports of atrocities perpetrated by the intended object of our planned hostilities, find an individual villain to bear the major blame, then create a particularly outrageous incident as a catalyst to launch the attack. The manufactured appearance of a firm consensus of approval compels most doubters to assume that it would be a waste of time to debate the issue, in the media or in Congress.

Of course, the U.S. must always be depicted as a peace-loving, objective judge of who is right and who is wrong and as a reluctant negotiator between intractable warring factions who cannot resolve their own conflicts. Sustaining this image is easy while the killing takes place far away and is over with quickly, so our adversaries must be chosen carefully--they must be weak enough to be easily and quickly defeated. Even so, these propaganda techniques require obedient media which will not ask embarrassing questions. All these conditions were present for the Yugoslav war.

But this time the U.S. engaged in a violation of sovereignty which was impossible to conceal, without any legitimacy and not even the age-old excuse of "defending our interest" in any way discernible to the U.S. electorate. Fear of communism cannot work its magic here. Using the specter of "Muslim terrorism" as an excuse will not work because the Bosnian Muslims are, in a way, our allies and the Kosovo Liberation Army, which we had designated as terrorist as recently as 1998, is now our partner in Kosovo.

As if this did not present enough challenge to propagandists, our NATO allies, with the exception of Britain, were not happy with our push toward war. Russia and China were vehemently opposed in the Security Council. Even our own secretary of defense was uneasy that Americans did not know where Kosovo was and would not be happy to see U.S. troops sent there.

There was a pressing need for the media to carry the right message and present the correct images without any overt censorship or any evidence that they were under pressure to manipulate public opinion. The illusion of a free press had to be preserved--a daunting challenge made even more difficult when the early bombing, which was supposed to settle the matter in days, did not work. It soon became obvious that this war could not be won from a safe distance without risk of U.S. lives.

By the time the administration decided to intervene in Yugoslavia, a civil war of modest proportions was already accompanying the break-up of the Yugoslav Republic. Civil wars are brutal affairs. Visual images of the killing of civilians, the burning of villages, and fleeing refugees are very powerful. If, as in this case, the spotlight is beamed exclusively on one faction while the others are unphotographed and unreported, the response of the American public is predictable.

In the days preceding U.S. military action, anti-Serb propaganda filled the pages of our newspapers and the airwaves of the electronic media. Earlier atrocities visited on the Serbs were not reported. Time and again what we were told and shown about Serbia was offered without historical references, out of context. Words such as "ethnic cleansing" and even "genocide" were used without discretion.

At least three public-relations firms have been working for the Serbs' enemies. One media-watch organization relates that "after three years of labor [they] succeeded in an unprecedented way in globalizing an essentially local hatred. There have been some dozen media blitzes of various duration and insensitivity against the Serbs." After Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic refused services offered by a public relations firm called Ruder Finn, the firm immediately went to Zagreb and sold services to the Croatians.

With the cooperation of the media, these public-relations professionals did their job well and an astonishing number of U.S. citizens were moved to expressions of outrage against the Serbs--including many progressives and anti-war activists. Not content with this success, the administration continued to supply exaggerated figures of casualties, conceal the active role the U.S. was playing in promoting hostilities, provide gruesome pictures of atrocities, and offer to the media a stream of refugees willing to blame the Serbs for everything.

It was predicted that after the Kosovo bombing 100,000 victims would be found in mass graves. When the hostilities ceased, a Spanish forensic team looked for those mass graves but they could not find any. Of the more than 2,500 dead, it was hard to tell how many were the victims of U.S. bombs.

In all these stratagems, how do the media manage to remain so disciplined? Consider the far-reaching influence of the administration and the Pentagon. For example, CNN Reporter Christiane Amanpour is never identified as the wife of President Clinton's advisor, James Rubin, while reporting the news. CNN was also exposed for having used the services of the Pentagon's Psychological Operations experts. Meanwhile, the three anchors of the major networks, Koppel, Jennings, and Brokaw, long ago made their peace with their journalistic consciences in order to remain inside the informational network provided by the Administration for those who are faithful carriers of their spins.

Even in the public media, their documentaries leave audiences with the impression that all massacres have been uniformly Serb-generated. Public television has just aired two shows which are so explicitly anti-Serb they should make excellent material for future journalism schools on how propaganda is made. Bill Moyers' documentary, "A Cry from the Grave" isolates one gruesome incident, with no attempt to put it in context, and with no suggestion that equal, or worse, atrocities had been committed elsewhere.

Of course, there is no mention in Moyer's work of the U.S. role in escalating the violence with the indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians, sometimes with cluster bombs or depleted uranium weapons. Never mentioned is the U.S. role in training and equipping some of Serbia's tormentors, who are also responsible for atrocities.

The big lie is that this is a humanitarian war. The constant spin is that the U.S. is only trying to establish a just peace. As the PBS Frontline documentary put it, we now have a new "Doctrine of Virtuous Power." Such arrogance is breathtaking as we view the ruins in which we have left Yugoslavia.

Even these documentarians seem to realize that concealment of the truth is going to be even more difficult as our war drags on and U.S. personnel are stationed in Yugoslavia indefinitely. The Frontline documentary ends on a plaintive rather than a triumphant note, as if they are beginning to suspect the whole venture may prove to be a disaster: "At least they tried to do the right thing." What an epitaph!

The bottom line is that this war simply could not have been launched without compliant, even subservient, media. Information withheld kills just as brutally as a gun fired. It is a tribute to the decency of the people of the U.S. that so much lying and concealment has been necessary to prevent an outraged reaction.

Mary Shepard originally presented a longer version of this article at the March 4, 2000, Twin Cities hearing of the International War Crimes Tribunal initiated by the International Action Center. For more information, see the April 2000 issue of worldwideWAMM, go to WAMM's Web site at www.worldwideWAMM.org, or call the WAMM office at 612-827-5364.