March 29, 2003
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Another reason why our nearly unilateral rush into this war combined with our “bully” demeanor and past middle eastern policies turns out to have been a bad idea:
A report was obtained, prepared by the Al-Kuwait-based [coalition] Psychological Operations Tactical Group for the [coalition] Special Ground Forces Command. The report analyzed the effectiveness of the information and propaganda war. According to the report, analysis of the television broadcasts, intercepted radio communications, interrogations of Iraqi POWs show that psychologically the Iraqis are now “more stable and confident” that they were during the last days before the war. This, according to the report, is due primarily to the coalition’s numerous military failures.
“…Following nervousness and depression [of the Iraqis] during the first days of the war we can now observe a burst of patriotic and nationalistic feelings. …There has been a sharp increase in the number of Iraqi refugees, who left the country before the war, returning to Iraq. A “cult of war” against the US and the UK is now emerging among the Iraqis…”, the report states. [Reverse translation from Russian]
[Coalition] analysts believe that if this attitude of the Iraqis is not changed within the next 7 days, a “resistance ideology” may take over the Iraqi minds, making the final [coalition] victory even more difficult. In response to this report the US Army Psychological Operations command decided to combine all Iraqi POWs into large groups and to distribute the resulting video footage to the world media. A more active use of the Iraqi opposition was suggested for propaganda work in the occupied villages. The same opposition members will be used to create video footage of the “repented” Iraqi POWs and footage of the local [Iraqi] population “opposing Saddam.”
- http://www.aeronautics.ru/
It is generally acknowledged that Saddam is tyrant who abuses and murders his own people. Based on all the propaganda, one would think we could have won this particular popularity contest.
Btw, in case anyone remembers the “War on Terrorism”, this is a relatively long but very interesting article on Sayyid Qutb who is the “Karl Marx” of radical Islamicism. It is on the New York Times site, so you have to register for a free account.
One of the commonly quoted statements is that “They hate us for our freedom”. This is often rejected by peace activists who have travelled abroad to Palestine and Iraq and found themselves well treated by their hosts.
The interesting thing, is that it turns out that there is a grain of truth to the statement. It isn’t quite so direct and has more to do with our influence and involvement in their countries, the historical relationships between Western and Middle Eastern nations, and Qutb’s ideas on what freedom is, but it is interesting to get a perspective into the thoughts of those who we are now at war with.
Sayyid Qutb, a member of a group called “the Muslim Brotherhood” was executed in 1966 for plotting against Egyptian President Nasser.
