Page 222 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 201

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBALISED WORLD
World War conflicts, the same or similar techniques have been used by the
Western powers in military expeditions of far more dubious legitimacy –
Grenada, Nicaragua, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, to name but
three. In each of these situations, ‘enemies’ were created and ‘threats’ were
manufactured by military public relations specialists, while journalists
were prevented or dissuaded from presenting alternative accounts of the
‘truth’.
Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the Gulf war as political
communication was its demonstration of how readily such messages as the
incubator story were accepted and passed on by journalists eager for
material to confirm their image of Saddam as a tyrannical violator of
human rights. When ‘Gulf War II’ threatened to break out in 1998, lurid
and frightening images of the biological and nerve gas weapons which
Saddam Hussein was allegedly building, and which could wipe out a
Western European city, were reported by the media as uncontestable truths,
rather than what they were – unsubstantiated speculations which were
being used to whip up public opinion behind another military campaign
against Iraq. Few observers doubt that Saddam Hussein was in 1991, and
remained until his downfall in 2003, a murderous individual, heading a
genocidal, fascist regime. This does not excuse journalists from the
responsibility of reporting his government’s activities, and those of the
Western powers ranged against him, with a degree of emotional distance
and objectivity, especially if this could mean the difference between peace
and war.

‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’
This responsibility arose again in the aftermath of September 11, when the
generalised slogan of ‘war against terror’ was invoked to legitimise military
action against Saddam Hussein. In the months after September 11 both the
British and US governments pursued a campaign to persuade their own
publics, and the international community, that Saddam was indeed a threat
sufficient to justify his regime’s destruction. The British government dossier
on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, published after much anticipation
on 24 September 2002, was accompanied by argument and counter-
argument, from politicians and media, as to the true significance of its
contents. Which was as it should have been. As in previous episodes of the
decade-long conflict between the West and Iraq, recognition of the fascistic
nature of Saddam’s regime did not absolve the media from their democratic
duty to ensure that major war in the Middle East was not being entered into
lightly, and that military force was indeed a last resort rather than a hasty
knee-jerk reaction to the September 11 attacks. In the event, severe and
sustained media criticism of the British and American governments’ presen-
tation of the ‘threat’ posed by Saddam Hussein and his (as it transpired)

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