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  • Why America Fights: Patriotism and Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq by Susan A. Brewer
  • Laura A. Belmonte
Susan A. Brewer, Why America Fights: Patriotism and Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 342 pp.

Susan Brewer’s meticulously researched and engagingly written book is a strong addition to the burgeoning literature on U.S. propaganda. Tracing the U.S. government’s official presentation of its war aims in the Philippines War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War, Why We Fight masterfully distills a huge body of work into a narrative that is approachable and thought-provoking. In addition to providing a persuasive analysis of U.S. propaganda, it is a marvelous introduction to key events in the history of U.S. foreign relations.

Brewer highlights how U.S. policymakers have defended U.S. interests and ideals through the manipulation of facts and the promotion of easily understood messages. Focusing on propaganda targeting domestic audiences, Brewer explores the tensions between idealized rationales for wars and the realities of the people and country who wage them. Time and time again, U.S. officials have “blended facts with inspiring and reassuring cultural beliefs, blurring what was true with what people wanted to believe was true” (p. 89).

The chapters on specific conflicts are compelling if familiar. The U.S. campaign to present the Philippines War as a quest to bring Christianity, civilization, capitalism, and democracy to an uncivilized, racially backward people was complicated by a long, brutal struggle and patently undemocratic actions. Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to define World War I as a crusade to make the world safe for democracy collided with dehumanized portrayals of Germans and infringements of civil liberties on the home front. In World War II, U.S. propagandists reworked the barbarism-versus-civilization theme into a “strategy of truth,” defining the conflict as a battle between democracy and dictatorship. High civilian casualties, atrocities, and difficult relationships among U.S. allies obfuscated efforts to present the war in such Manichaean terms.

While U.S. officials “selling” these conflicts adhered to a core narrative asking Americans to make sacrifices in order to attain victory, their successors revised this theme. Confronted with the prolonged mobilization required to wage consecutive global wars on Communism and terrorism, U.S. propagandists abandoned calls for sacrifice in favor of soliciting uncritical public acceptance of professed U.S. war aims. Officials “decided to lead by manipulation, first spreading fear and then projecting strength, justifying exaggeration of foreign threats as being in the public’s best interests” (p. 177).

These efforts have not been terribly successful. When war erupted in Korea, the [End Page 193] Truman administration recast existing anti-Asian stereotypes to demonize North Koreans and Communist Chinese and win popular support for the Cold War. Despite these appeals, the limited and inconclusive war did not generate public enthusiasm.

In a particularly strong chapter on the Vietnam War, Brewer shows how and why similar tactics failed spectacularly when applied to the ambiguities of the conflicts in Southeast Asia. Exposure of the dishonest and misleading justifications for the war sparked intense domestic controversies and shattered the Cold War consensus. Brewer closes with a cogent analysis of the flawed propaganda strategies used by George W. Bush’s administration during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Neither “perception management” nor stinging attacks on the war’s critics resulted in sustained public support for the protracted, expensive conflict. Official justifications for the war, including Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and professed U.S. desires to create a model democracy in the Arab world, did not survive media scrutiny and public skepticism.

Throughout the book, Brewer skillfully interweaves political and diplomatic history. She addresses the formulation and implementation of U.S. propaganda strategy within the federal bureaucracy and examines how journalists, filmmakers, and advertising executives collaborated on these initiatives. She demonstrates the impact of government censorship on popular opinions about war and those attempting to challenge official narratives about conflict.

Brewer’s treatment of the notorious 1918 lynching of Robert Prager, a Socialist critic of World War I, contains a very...

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