The war of misinformation has begun - "a very cynical, but I fear accurate, prediction"

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 11:01:08 +0000
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: The war of misinformation has begun

Dave:

Here is a very cynical, but I fear accurate, prediction - by a very
experienced reporter - in today's Independent (a UK National Sunday
newspaper) about the way the media will cover the coming war. I
particularly draw your attention to the final section "Weasel words
to watch for."

cheers

Brian Randell

=====


The war of misinformation has begun

By Robert Fisk

16 March 2003

All across the Middle East, they are deploying by the thousand. In the
deserts of Kuwait, in Amman, in northern Iraq, in Turkey, in Israel and in
Baghdad itself. There must be 7,000 journalists and crews "in theatre", as
the more jingoistic of them like to say. In Qatar, a massive press centre
has been erected for journalists who will not see the war. How many times
General Tommy Franks will spin his story to the press at the nine o'clock
follies, no one knows. He doesn't even like talking to journalists.

But the journalistic resources being laid down in the region are enormous.
The BBC alone has 35 reporters in the Middle East, 17 of them "embedded" ­
along with hundreds of reporters from the American networks and other
channels ­ in military units. Once the invasion starts, they will lose their
freedom to write what they want. There will be censorship. And, I'll hazard
a guess right now, we shall see many of the British and American journalists
back to their old trick of playing toy soldiers, dressing themselves up in
military costumes for their nightly theatrical performances on television.
Incredibly, several of the American networks have set up shop in the Kurdish
north of Iraq with orders not to file a single story until war begins ­ in
case this provokes the Iraqis to expel their network reporters from Baghdad.

The orchestration will be everything, the pictures often posed, the angles
chosen by "minders", much as the Iraqis will try to do the same thing in
Baghdad. Take yesterday's front-page pictures of massed British troops in
Kuwait, complete with arranged tanks and perfectly formatted helicopters.
This was the perfectly planned photo-op. Of course, it won't last.

Here's a few guesses about our coverage of the war to come. American and
British forces use thousands of depleted uranium (DU) shells ­ widely
regarded by 1991 veterans as the cause of Gulf War syndrome as well as
thousands of child cancers in present day Iraq ­ to batter their way across
the Kuwaiti-Iraqi frontier. Within hours, they will enter the city of Basra,
to be greeted by its Shia Muslim inhabitants as liberators. US and British
troops will be given roses and pelted with rice ­ a traditional Arab
greeting ­ as they drive "victoriously" through the streets. The first news
pictures of the war will warm the hearts of Messrs Bush and Blair. There
will be virtually no mention by reporters of the use of DU munitions.

But in Baghdad, reporters will be covering the bombing raids that are
killing civilians by the score and then by the hundred. These journalists,
as usual, will be accused of giving "comfort to the enemy while British
troops are fighting for their lives". By now, in Basra and other "liberated"
cities south of the capital, Iraqis are taking their fearful revenge on
Saddam Hussein's Baath party officials. Men are hanged from lamp-posts. Much
television footage of these scenes will have to be cut to sanitise the
extent of the violence.

Far better for the US and British governments will be the macabre discovery
of torture chambers and "rape-rooms" and prisoners with personal accounts of
the most terrible suffering at the hands of Saddam's secret police. This
will "prove" how right "we" are to liberate these poor people. Then the US
will have to find the "weapons of mass destruction" that supposedly provoked
this bloody war. In the journalistic hunt for these weapons, any old rocket
will do for the moment.

Bunkers allegedly containing chemical weapons will be cordoned off ­ too
dangerous for any journalist to approach, of course. Perhaps they actually
do contain VX or anthrax. But for the moment, the all-important thing for
Washington and London is to convince the world that the casus belli was true
­ and reporters, in or out of military costume, will be on hand to say just
that.

Baghdad is surrounded and its defenders ordered to surrender. There will be
fighting between Shias and Sunnis around the slums of the city, the
beginning of a ferocious civil conflict for which the invading armies are
totally unprepared. US forces will sweep past Baghdad to his home city of
Tikrit in their hunt for Saddam Hussein. Bush and Blair will appear on
television to speak of their great "victories". But as they are boasting,
the real story will begin to be told: the break-up of Iraqi society, the
return of thousands of Basra refugees from Iran, many of them with guns, all
refusing to live under western occupation.

In the north, Kurdish guerrillas will try to enter Kirkuk, where they will
kill or "ethnically cleanse" many of the city's Arab inhabitants. Across
Iraq, the invading armies will witness terrible scenes of revenge which can
no longer be kept off television screens. The collapse of the Iraqi nation
is now under way ...

Of course, the Americans and British just might get into Baghdad in three
days for their roses and rice water. That's what the British did in 1917.
And from there, it was all downhill.

Weasel words to watch for

'Inevitable revenge' ­ for the executions of Saddam's Baath party officials
which no one actually said were inevitable.

'Stubborn' or 'suicidal' ­ to be used when Iraqi forces fight rather than
retreat.

'Allegedly' ­ for all carnage caused by Western forces.

'At last, the damning evidence' ­ used when reporters enter old torture
chambers.

'Officials here are not giving us much access' ­ a clear sign that reporters
in Baghdad are confined to their hotels.

'Life goes on' ­ for any pictures of Iraq's poor making tea.

'Remnants' ­ allegedly 'diehard' Iraqi troops still shooting at the
Americans but actually the first signs of a resistance movement dedicated to
the 'liberation' of Iraq from its new western occupiers.

'Newly liberated' ­ for territory and cities newly occupied by the Americans
or British.

'What went wrong?' ­ to accompany pictures illustrating the growing anarchy
in Iraq as if it were not predicted.

Also in Politics
The Final Charade
Saddam puts Iraq on war footing
A war of words in the Azores, as our troops prepare for battle
'Of course they will target us - but we are prepared'
We sing, we march, and we wait for the bombs

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Ltd 

Full article at:

   http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=387592



-- 
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/


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