A certain pattern appears to have developed in the art of persuading Americans to war. It goes something like this: 1. Pick a target, presumably with some direct or indirect connection to some actual threat or transgression. 2. Paint that target — and all people who happen to live in its general vicinity — as the most evil, vile thing ever to walk the face of the planet.
Maybe it’s just me, but this seems an odd way for a rational government to go about persuading a rational people.
After all, there are circumstances under which war is arguably necessary. Since the government has been charged with the task of determining when we go to war and with whom, and since we put such a great deal of resources towards and have such a great number of advisors on the subject, one must suppose that when the government decides to start a war — declared or otherwise — that they do so only after considerable deliberation which leads them to reason that a particular war is a necessary course of action.
So why is the reasoning, if it is conveyed at all, not the primary vehicle by which the government seeks to convince Americans to support a war? Why do they instead resort to comparisons to Hitler, far-fetched depictions of bloodthirsty haters of freedom, and empty axis-of-evil variety slogans?
I can imagine only two motivations for such methods. Either the war being so promoted — or its particular methods or targets — is not in fact the most reasonable and necessary course of action for the majority of Americans, or the government just thinks we’re too stupid to reason with.
There are certainly plenty of people who will argue that most, if not all wars are unnecessary. Take our current war, for example. Though most people seem to agree that something needs to be done about terrorism, there are many who argue that this war, or the tactics used in it, are not an effective way to handle the problem. Most such people are primarily concerned with the fact that people have been killed who have no part and no power in supporting terrorists.
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But even putting general human compassion aside, there are purely self-interested reasons against this war. I can’t say I shed any tears over the loss of the Taliban, but that supposed victory doesn’t seem to have brought us any closer to ending terrorism than we were last September.
It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if the government’s emotionally charged and rationally empty rhetoric were the result of an actual lack of reasoning, since this war seems pretty clearly not to be accomplishing its stated purpose.
On the other hand, anyone who’s ever seen a campaign ad can guess that most of the people in government don’t think very highly of our intelligence. If a given war is reasonable, the government might well think us too stupid to be persuaded to it without base rhetoric. And if it’s not reasonable, the government must suppose us so gullible as to fall for slogans.
The most puzzling part of war propaganda is how far it diverges from sentiment in the military itself. I’ve been conversing with various friends and acquaintances currently or formerly in the military and reading up on the subject, and what I’ve found contrasts sharply with the enemy-as-the-ultimate-evil image that is typically fed to the general public.
The common view of the so-called enemy that I’ve found among military folks is that people in other countries’ militaries are just regular Joes doing their job, the same as the people in our military. The demonization of the enemy required of any red-blooded American civilian doesn’t seem to be present in the people actually fighting the war.
And if the people doing the actual fighting don’t need to believe that they’re fighting the devil, why should we civilians? The more I ponder war propaganda, the less sense it makes.
Fortunately, the “axis of evil” seems to have provoked more jokes than patriotic fervor, so maybe there’s hope for us after all.
Please send rational arguments to Sari Krosinsky at michal_kro@hotmail.com.
