Micro-study 1: Celluloid Heroes — Propaganda and the Gulf War on Film

32FUm & History, Voi. XXII, Nos. 1 &2, February/May 1992 Micro-study 1: Celluloid Heroes -- Propaganda and the Gulf War on Film Edward P. Morgan I've got to remind myself every day, every person counts. There's a reason I'm here. . . . We all pay a price and so does my family, but I'm serving my country and Fm proud of it. - a Latino soldier in Heroes ofthe Storm During the "right turn" of the 1980s, the United States government grappled with a dysfunctional "Vietnam syndrome" of public resistance to overseas military intervention. Simultaneously, the science of public opinion management and the manipulation of mass media (particularlytelevision) reached levels ofunprecedented effectiveness. Not surprisingly, critics on the Left have focused increasingly on government propaganda and the cooperative role of the mass media in advancing the interests of American interventionism abroad.1 The Gulf War provides a fertile test case for the critical thesis about American propaganda and public manipulation. The Bush administration employed an array of traditionalpropagandatechniques - symbolicmanipulation, sanitized language, distortion, and the controlled flow of information - in presenting its case to world public opinion.2 As such, the administration's justification or "story line" represented the "correct" way for the public to piece together the innumerable fragments of information it received through the mass media. This article examines the degree to which the administration's story line has been faithfully preserved in the first commercial film about the Gulf war, the made-for-television docudrama, Heroes ofthe Storm, which aired on ABC on October 6, 1991. Like such recent television hybrids as 30-minute "news" commercials and "real-life" police or emergency shows, Heroes bridged "life" and "art," weaving together documentary footage from war newscasts and a dramatic account ("based on true stories," according to the film introduction) of the personal lives of American soldiers called to "duty in the war. Both accentuated tales of heroism on the part of coalition forces. Edward P. Morgan is Professor of Government at Lehigh University. He is the author of The Sixties Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America ( Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1991). Micro-study 1: Heroes of the Storm 33 Gulf War Propaganda: The Government's Story Line The most comprehensive justification for American/coalition actions in the Gulfwar emerged in President Bush's speech of January 16, 1992, announcing the initial coalition air attacks on Iraq. The administration laid the groundwork for public acceptance of its policies in earlier condemnations of Iraqi aggression dating back to early August, 1990. However, the January address blended together nine related themes in the most comprehensive case for going to war. In brief, the government's story line consisted of the following: (1)Conflict origins: In his recapitulation ofthe past, the president circumscribed the conflict by observing, "This conflict started August 2...." Not surprisingly, prior Iraqi grievances against Kuwait and U. S. assistance to Saddam Hussein were part of an invisible and presumably irrelevant past preceding Iraq's invasion. (2)Characterization of Iraq's action: As he had done earlier, the president denounced Iraq's (Saddam's) actionsinbellicose terms: "Saddam Hussein systematicallyraped, pillaged, and plundered a tiny nation no threat to his own. He subjected the people of Kuwait to unspeakable atrocities, and among those maimed and murdered, innocent children." (3)Characterization of the "Coalition": The President frequently generalized about a global "we" supporting the attack against Iraq, an isolated and unanimously discredited enemy. "Twenty-eight nations...have forces in the Gulf standing shoulder to shoulder against Saddam;" "while the world prayed for peace, Saddam prepared for war;" "Saddam was warned over and over again to comply with the will of the United Nations;" "[Saddam] has tried to make this a dispute between Iraq and the United States of America;" "no nation can stand against a world united." (4)Desiring Peace vs. Desiring War: Lest his audience wonder which side wanted peace and which side wanted war, President Bush elaborated at length: This military action... follows months of constant and virtually endless diplomatic activity on the part of the United Nations, the United States, and many, many other countries. Arab leaders sought what became known as an Arab solution, only to conclude that Saddam Hussein...