an interesting view from New Zealand

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Richard Jay Solomon <rsolomon () dsl cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 17:50:51 -0500
To: farber () cis upenn edu (David Farber)
Subject: an interesting view from New Zealand

Don't know what to make of this, but it's interesting nevertheless because
it's from overseas press.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3300529&thesection=news&t
hesubsection=world

> Suddenly, real war hits home
>
> 26.03.2003
> By ANDREW GUMBEL IN Los Angeles
>
> All of a sudden, brutal reality is kicking in.
>
> Before the Iraq invasion started, many Americans imagined the campaign in
> terms of Hollywood movies or the video-game abstraction of the television
> coverage of the first Gulf War - that virtual reality in which we drop bombs
> and only the enemy dies, and off-camera at that.
>
> But after the setbacks, guerrilla-style ambushes, downed helicopters and
> disturbing images of United States soldiers dying or being taken prisoner over
> the past two days, the mood has changed abruptly.
>
> "My God, this is getting much messier than I thought," was the reaction of one
> young Californian nursery school teacher yesterday. Her colleagues all
> concurred.
>
> Across Los Angeles, the mood was overwhelmingly one of consternation and just
> a little dread. "I have a sick feeling about where this is all heading. They
> made us believe this would be a cakewalk, and now look what is happening,"
> said another woman.
>
> "This can only make the world hate us Americans more." In what is perhaps a
> sign of the times, she did not want to be named.
>
> It is hard to know exactly how representative such views are, especially since
> southern California has been a bastion of anti-war sentiment. At least some
> people who believe in the war were quoted yesterday saying that casualties and
> setbacks were to be expected as part of the mission.
>
> But it is also true that the Bush Administration massively raised expectations
> as to the speed and ease of the military operation to topple Iraqi President
> Saddam Hussein.
>
> Before the war started last week, the President himself talked - in his
> televised statements, in his March 6 news conference and in his weekly radio
> addresses - as though the fighting was already over and the reconstruction of
> Iraq had begun.
>
>
> But now many Americans believe US forces will suffer casualties. Daphne
> Nugent, from New York, questioned in a Washington Post/ABC poll commented: "I
> didn't expect there to be this much trouble. And I'm a little upset by what
> I'm hearing in terms of the casualties and the prisoners of war. I thought it
> would end pretty easily and quickly, the war part of it anyway, not the
> occupation part."
>
> Other New Yorkers, including those who survived the destruction of the World
> Trade Centre, have also described their mixed feelings at seeing similar
> scenes of buildings under aerial bombardment in Baghdad.
>
> Crude oil prices are also rising in response to the prospect of a longer war.
>
> This is no quick in and out, as in the Nato campaigns in Bosnia in 1995 and
> Kosovo in 1999. As several soldiers at the front have come to appreciate, this
> is very different from 1991, when the US-led coalition concentrated on kicking
> Iraqi forces out of a country, Kuwait, that had invited it in to do so.
>
> "People thought the Iraqis would be waving little American flags like it was
> occupied France in World War II," commented Vincent Cannistraro, a retired CIA
> counter-terrorism expert. "This is not an occupied country. It is Iraq and it
> is run by Iraqis, and for better or worse they are not welcoming Americans as
> liberators."
>
> Both pro-war and anti-war voices agree that this is likely to turn into the
> most in-your-face conflict that American troops - and, just as significantly,
> American public opinion - have faced since Vietnam.
>
> "This kind of thing has not been seen on US television screens for more than
> 30 years," said Sandy Cate, an anthropology professor from San Francisco.
> "You've got one, perhaps two, generations who have grown up with no idea of
> what war is really like ... . Well, now they are learning."
>
> Part of the change in attitude is because of the media. Unlike the first Gulf
> War, when journalists were kept well away from the front, reporters are now
> "embedded" with Army units.
>
> Some media critics have worried about journalists over-identifying with their
> units, but they also concede this provides much less sanitised, coverage than
> in 1991.
>
> Expert opinion is divided on the degree of public tolerance for casualties.
>
> One sociologist, James Burk, told the Washington Post he thought the public
> would accept casualties as long as they were incurred "in pursuit of a mission
> that they think is reasonable". But others, including John Mueller of Ohio
> State University, believed tolerance would be very low.
>
> Nobody in Government has so much as mentioned body bags, he observed.
>
> America's mood
>
> * Before the Iraq war started 43 per cent of respondents in a New York
> Times/CBS poll expected a quick and successful campaign.
>
> * By the end of last week, with bombs raining down on Baghdad that number had
> risen to 63 per cent. More than half thought the war would end in a matter of
> weeks.
> * The trend has reversed. In a poll in yesterday's Washington Post, 54 per
> cent now believe the US will sustain "significant" casualties in Iraq, up from
> 37 per cent in a similar poll taken on the first day of the war last Thursday.
>
> ©Copyright 2003, New Zealand Herald


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