Miscommunication and Malaise
Jed Babbin gives the most coherent analysis of our current military malaise in Iraq and the War.
He states:
His (President Bush) speeches, such as the one he delivered to the American Legion this week, merely repeat the rallying cries of the past four years. To repeat, as he did then, that we are going to win the war by ending tyranny and by growing democracies in the Middle East, surrenders control of the outcome to religious leaders who reject democracy, who have no interest in freedom. President Bush cannot mean to do so, but if he does not, he needs to say what he does mean. We are still waiting.
IS THE PRESIDENT SO OBLIVIOUS to events that he doesn't understand that he has set Americans adrift in an ocean of hostile media, leaving the formation of public opinion to the New York Times, CBS, the BBC and Alec Baldwin? Are he and his principal staffers so mired in the Dubai port deal and the everlasting Katrina recriminations that they are unable to realize how badly the president is failing? Is it even possible to wake him up to the job at hand? I fear not. As the months pass, the Bush administration looks more and more like that of Lyndon Johnson. Instead of setting and pursuing a course to win the war, it is only responding to the press-inflicted beatings it absorbs each day. The president should remember what Lincoln learned the hard way, that the media are the worst war strategists. Allowing the media to set the terms of the debate is a clearly marked path to defeat.
Bear in mind, Jed Babbin is a former Undersecretary of Defense, and his military opinions should be taken seriously.
He speaks about the ``Great Miscommunicator`s`` propaganda failure in Iraq:
THE PRESIDENT MUST CREATE the solutions by thinking on two levels. First, in terms of our strategic goals, which are to defeat the enemy's ideology and destroy his means of threatening our people and our interests. Second, in terms of the symbolism: the political meaning of our actions in the religious context in which our enemies exist. In the latter, we can strike at the enemy's ideology and cut through the fog that shrouds the road to success not only in Iraq, but in the wider war. Symbols, be they editorial cartoons of Mohammed or the Askari shrine, are potent forces in Islam and on them power is built. To paraphrase an earlier Buckleyism, we need to immanentize their eschaton. To use religious symbology to defeat the ideology of the terrorists.
He`s right; we have failed miserably in propaganda-largely because of the imbedding of reporters who would turn purple with rage at anything which would actually advance our cause. The Media is doing the propagandizing, and they seem to be working for the enemy. They cry foul at any American efforts. (Remember the flap over entirely factual pro-American articles being commissioned by the military?)
You cannot win a war without propaganda-especially a war of this nature. If there is a propaganda vacuum on our side the enemy will be happy to fill it with their own.
Be sure to read the article in its entirety; Babbin sums up our current dilemma superbly.
He states:
His (President Bush) speeches, such as the one he delivered to the American Legion this week, merely repeat the rallying cries of the past four years. To repeat, as he did then, that we are going to win the war by ending tyranny and by growing democracies in the Middle East, surrenders control of the outcome to religious leaders who reject democracy, who have no interest in freedom. President Bush cannot mean to do so, but if he does not, he needs to say what he does mean. We are still waiting.
IS THE PRESIDENT SO OBLIVIOUS to events that he doesn't understand that he has set Americans adrift in an ocean of hostile media, leaving the formation of public opinion to the New York Times, CBS, the BBC and Alec Baldwin? Are he and his principal staffers so mired in the Dubai port deal and the everlasting Katrina recriminations that they are unable to realize how badly the president is failing? Is it even possible to wake him up to the job at hand? I fear not. As the months pass, the Bush administration looks more and more like that of Lyndon Johnson. Instead of setting and pursuing a course to win the war, it is only responding to the press-inflicted beatings it absorbs each day. The president should remember what Lincoln learned the hard way, that the media are the worst war strategists. Allowing the media to set the terms of the debate is a clearly marked path to defeat.
Bear in mind, Jed Babbin is a former Undersecretary of Defense, and his military opinions should be taken seriously.
He speaks about the ``Great Miscommunicator`s`` propaganda failure in Iraq:
THE PRESIDENT MUST CREATE the solutions by thinking on two levels. First, in terms of our strategic goals, which are to defeat the enemy's ideology and destroy his means of threatening our people and our interests. Second, in terms of the symbolism: the political meaning of our actions in the religious context in which our enemies exist. In the latter, we can strike at the enemy's ideology and cut through the fog that shrouds the road to success not only in Iraq, but in the wider war. Symbols, be they editorial cartoons of Mohammed or the Askari shrine, are potent forces in Islam and on them power is built. To paraphrase an earlier Buckleyism, we need to immanentize their eschaton. To use religious symbology to defeat the ideology of the terrorists.
He`s right; we have failed miserably in propaganda-largely because of the imbedding of reporters who would turn purple with rage at anything which would actually advance our cause. The Media is doing the propagandizing, and they seem to be working for the enemy. They cry foul at any American efforts. (Remember the flap over entirely factual pro-American articles being commissioned by the military?)
You cannot win a war without propaganda-especially a war of this nature. If there is a propaganda vacuum on our side the enemy will be happy to fill it with their own.
Be sure to read the article in its entirety; Babbin sums up our current dilemma superbly.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 5:33 AM
2 Comments:
Tim, Babbin is right on.
The media unfortunately is playing this administration like a fiddle not the other way around.
This is however not confined to Bush and his White House. The entire Republican party except for McCain (and we all know how "we" feel about him) are complete media imbeciles. The conservatives in the media and at the think tanks are dead on with there analysis and proscriptions yet the elected officials on the Republican side fail miserably to get a clear unambiguous message out once they get elected.
Thank God the Dems are even worse...
Yeah, I agree; this could wind up becoming known as the ``era of miscommunication`` in the history books. The Republicans are terrible at communication, and the Democrats are unable to miscommunicate well (they can`t say what they really believe, of course.)
Of course, the media is constantly trying to twist things...
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