virus: FW: News Coverage as a Weapon

From: Jonathan Davis (jonathan@limbicnutrition.com)
Date: Mon May 17 2004 - 18:12:13 MDT

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    Some of you might find this interesting. Try to set aside this writers
    ideological slant and enjoy his insightful analysis of modern "home
    front" fighting.
     
    Regards
     
    Jonathan

    ________________________________

    From: wretchard
    Posted At: 17 May 2004 22:57
    Posted To: Belmont Club
    Conversation: News Coverage as a Weapon Historian John Terrain...
    Subject: News Coverage as a Weapon Historian John Terrain...

    http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_belmontclub_archive.html#1084
    80294741806978

    News Coverage as a Weapon

    Historian John Terraine
    <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0283988282/002-1410050-94
    12043?v=glance> notes that unit casualty rates during the Civil War
    were close to those experienced by the British Army on the Somme. The
    1/Newfoundland Regiment lost 84 % of its men on that fatal July 1, 1916.
    But the 1st Texas Regiment lost 82.3% in Antietam and the 1st Minnesota
    lost 82% at Gettysburg. Nor were these exceptional. "In the course of
    the Civil War 115 regiments (63 Union and 52 Confederate) sustained
    losses of more than 50 percent in a single engagement". Losses during
    World War 2 were just as brutal. Although the average loss
    <http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/bombercommand/summer1942.aspx
    > per individual mission was often under 5% for the pilots who flew in
    the British Bomber Command, the fact that they flew 30 missions per tour
    meant a crew had less than a 1 in 4 chance of completing it. Once you
    signed on, there was a 75% statistical chance you wouldn't survive. Nor
    were these estimates far from the truth. Almost sixty percent
    <http://www.lancastermuseum.ca/commandlosses.html> of Bomber Command, a
    total of 55,000 men, were killed. They had an easy time compared to
    German U-boat crewmen <http://www.submarine-history.com/NOVAfour.htm> ,
    who lost 630 men out of every thousand. Nations required a huge pool of
    manpower and high birthrates to sustain losses on this scale. Russia
    alone <http://ww2bodycount.netfirms.com/> suffered twenty million
    deaths during World War 2. Even Yugoslavia, a country whose role in the
    conflict is hardly remembered as central, lost 1.6 million killed.
    Defeat in that conflict came to those whose armies were driven from the
    field, whose cities were reduced to rubble and whose manpower resources
    could no longer continue the struggle.

    Viewed in this context, the American "defeat" in Iraq projected by the
    press must be understood as being something wholly different from
    anything that has gone before. The 800 odd US military deaths suffered
    since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom a year ago are less than the
    number who died in the Slapton Sands D-Day training exercise in 1944.
    The campaign in Iraq has hardly scratched American strength, which has
    in fact grown more potent in operational terms over the intervening
    period. Nor has it materially affected the US manpower pool or slowed
    the American economy, which is actually growing several times faster
    than France, which is not militarily engaged. The defeat being
    advertised by the press is a wholly new phenomenon: one which leaves the
    vanquished army untouched and the victor devastated; the economy of the
    vanquished burgeoning and that of the victor in destitution; the
    territory of the loser unoccupied and that of the winner garrisoned. It
    is an inversion of all the traditional metrics of victory and defeat.
    That the assertion is not instantly ludicrous is an indication of the
    arrival of a new and potentially revolutionary form of political wafare.

    It was during the Vietnam War that the Left first discovered the
    potential war-winning ability of media coverage. The concept itself is
    merely an extension of the blitzkrieg notion that the enemy command
    structure, not his troop masses, are the true center of gravity on the
    battlefield. During the campaign of 1940, Heinz Guderian's panzers
    bypassed many French formations, leaving them unfought, knowing that if
    their command structure were severed, the whole musclebound mass would
    fall to the ground headless. What the Left gradually discovered during
    the course of the Vietnam war was that Guderian had not been bold
    enough. Guderian still felt it necessary to win on the battlefield. He
    had not realized that it was possible to ignore the battlefield
    altogether because it was the enemy political structure, not his
    military capability, that was the true center of gravity of an entire
    campaign. It was General Giap during the Vietnam War who first planned a
    military operation entirely around its possible media effect. The Tet
    offensive was a last desperate attempt to gain the upper hand in a war
    he was losing <http://www.vietnam-war.info/battles/tet_offensive.php> .

            The Communist forces had taken a series of military defeats. the
    US/ARVN forces had pacified much of the south by the end of 1967 (222
    out of 242 provinces). Operation Junction City (February-March 1967) and
    other sweeps had seriously disrupted NLF activity in the south and
    forced the COSVN into Cambodia.

            At a July 1967 meeting the Communist Party leadership recognized
    their failures and decided to re-orientate their operations to target
    two key political weaknesses. Firstly, the deep gulf between the US
    public and the US government over support for the war and its actual
    progress. Secondly, the tensions existing between the US military and
    their Vietnamese allies.

            The leadership decided to concentrate on a few high profile
    operations, that would take place in the public (and the US media) eye
    rather than fighting the conflict away from major urban centres. This
    would bolster Northern moral, possibly inspire uprisings in the South
    and provide the impression, and hopefully the reality, that the US/ARVN
    were not winning the war and it was likely to be a long time before they
    did. The new policy also marked a victory for the 'hawks' over the
    'doves' in the Communist Party leadership, in late 1967 around 200
    senior officials were purged.

    Although Giap failed in every military respect, he succeeded in
    providing the press with the raw material necessary to alter the
    dynamics of American domestic politics. While he could not alter
    reality, the Giap could alter the perception of reality enough to give
    anti-war politicians a winning hand which they played it to the hilt.

            The NLF and the NVA lost around 35,000 men killed, 60,000
    wounded and 6,000 POWs for no military success. The US and ARVN dead
    totalled around 3,900 (1,100 US). But this was not the conflict as the
    US public saw it. Without there being an active conspiracy the US media
    reports were extremely damaging and shocked the American public and
    politicians. Apparently the depth of the US reaction even surprised the
    North Vietnamese leadership, as well as delighting them.

    The emergence of the press and media as decisive implements of warfare
    arose from changes in the nature of late twentieth century war itself.
    If battlefield reality was paramount in earlier wars it was because
    literally everyone was there. During the Civil War 15 percent of the
    total white population took the field, a staggering 75% of military age
    white males. During the Great War the major combatants put even higher
    proportions of their men on the line. Even after World War 2 it was
    still natural for children to ask, 'Daddy what did you do in the War?'
    and expect an answer. Reality affected everybody. But beginning with the
    Vietnam War and continuing into the current Iraqi campaign, the numbers
    of those actually engaged on the battlefield as a proportion of the
    population became increasingly small. Just how small is illustrated by
    comparing a major battle in the Civil War, Gettysburg, which inflicted
    over 50,000 casualties on a nation of 31.5 million to a "major" battle
    in Iraq, Fallujah, in which 10 Marines died in the fighting itself, on a
    population of 300 million. A war in which the watchers vastly
    outnumbered the fighters was bound to be different from when the reverse
    was true. A reality experienced by the few could be overridden by a
    fantasy sold to the many. This exchange of proportions ensured that the
    political and media dimensions of the late twentieth century American
    wars dwarfed their military aspects.

    But whereas General Giap was forced to rely on the Western media to
    carry his message home, modern day Jihadis have decided to create their
    own media outlets like Al Jazeera to shape public opinion. Moreover,
    they have extended proven methods of intimidating the Western media,
    described by CNN's Eason Jordan in his article in the New York Times
    <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html> to a standard
    operation of war
    <http://www.belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_belmontclub_archive.html
    #108172305524979009> . This set up a clash between two forces, one
    enjoying a preponderance in every area of military capability and skill
    but failing to recognize news coverage as a strategic weapon; and
    another whose military strategy was literally made for television.

    The US discovered how expensive it was to be wholly outmatched in this
    key combat system. Just how expensive was underscored by the media
    coverage of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse incident in which newspapers
    in the United States
    <http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1216964,00.html> and
    Britain <http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/20983.htm> published fake
    abuse photographs on top of the genuine ones without a rapid rebuttal.
    This blindness sprang not only from the tradition of keeping the
    military apart from civilian activities, but also from a reluctance to
    venture into areas protected by the First Amendment. It was nearly a
    year after OIF before the US began halting steps to redress the balance
    by establishing the Arabic Al Hurrah media outlet and creating a series
    of local television stations under the Spirit of America
    <http://www.spiritofamerica.net/> initiative.

    Yet the extension of warfare into the area of media coverage is fraught
    with great danger, in no small part because it subtly alters the
    definition of where the battlefield lies and who an enemy combatant is.
    One of the enduring strengths of Western democracy and of the US
    Constitution in particular is the delineation between legitimate dissent
    and enemy activity, a boundary which enables a democracy to continue
    functioning, albeit in an impaired state, even in wartime. But the
    changing balance between the political and military aspects of war means
    that this line will begin to blur as military activities cross over into
    the political. Already, the Pentagon is beginning to offer direct news
    <http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=1675781> from Iraq. It has also
    reorganized
    <http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2004/n05142004_200405146.html> its
    command structure in Iraq to explicitly recognize the role of political
    warfare.

            WASHINGTON, May 14, 2004 - Two new military commands will stand
    up in Iraq May 15, replacing the current coalition military
    organization.

            Multinational Corps Iraq and Multinational Force Iraq will
    replace Combined Joint Task Force 7.

            Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, at a
    Baghdad news conference today, said the change addresses a concern that
    a combined joint task force headquarters was not sufficient to handle
    the military workload in Iraq efficiently.

            "It's certainly more than a formality," he said. "It is trying
    to get the proper command structure for the days, weeks and months
    ahead."

            Kimmitt explained that Multinational Corps Iraq will focus on
    the tactical fight -- the day-to-day military operations and the
    maneuvering of the six multinational divisions on the ground. Army Lt.
    Gen. Thomas F. Metz will command the corps. Meanwhile, Multinational
    Force Iraq will focus on more strategic aspects of the military presence
    in Iraq, such as talking with sheiks and political leaders, and on
    training, equipping and fielding Iraqi security forces.

    The Left's very success at using the media as an arm in hyper-blitzkrieg
    inevitably invited, indeed necessitated, a riposte, with far reaching
    and probably regettable effects. One day Al Jazeera may be remembered in
    the same manner as the Dreadnought: the first in a series of ugly
    fusions between newly available technology and age-old malevolence; the
    vanguard in a flotilla of lies.

    Related...
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    %2fbelmontclub.blogspot.com%2f2004_05_01_belmontclub_archive.html%231084
    80294741806978>

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