1. CASE STUDY
Spectacle and Media Propaganda in the War on Iraq:
A Critique of U.S. Broadcasting Networks
The flurry of reports, leaks, and misinformation about the looming US war against
Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq continue with increasing density. It is
impossible to know, however, how much of this is a brilliantly managed campaign of
psychological war against Iraq, and how much the public floundering of a government
uncertain about its next step (Said 2004: 232).
There is no doubt that the 2003 Iraq war marked a new era in warfare, where war and
media technologies became an essential factor in the conduct of war. Unlike
Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq war introduced new elements to the concepts of
information control and news management, and subsequently to war reporting and
the role of journalism during conflicts.
In addition, the role of media corporations was no less central in the campaign,
especially those who decided to align themselves with the war effort, such as Fox News.
Big corporations in the US contributed to and influenced the media’s performance
during the war, and their common interests with the American administration was
another part of the remarkable pattern in understanding the developments that
occurred within media campaigning and wartime propaganda during the Iraq war.
The 2003 Iraq war was a major global media event constructed very differently by
varying broadcasting networks in different parts of the world. While the U.S. networks
framed the event as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (the Pentagon concept) or "War in Iraq,"
the Canadian CBC used the logo "War on Iraq," and various Arab networks presented it
as an "invasion" and "occupation."
As 2002 unfolded, the Bush administration intensified its ideological war against Iraq,
advanced its doctrine of preemptive strikes, and provided military build-up for what
now looks like an inevitable war. Bush's March 6, 2003 press conference made it evident
that he was ready to go to war against Iraq.
On March 19, the media spectacle of the war against Iraq unfolded with a dramatic
attempt to "decapitate" the Iraqi regime. Large numbers of missiles were aimed at
targets in Baghdad where Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership were believed to be
staying and the tens of thousands of ground troops on the Kuwait-Iraq border poised
for invasion entered Iraq in a blitzkrieg toward Baghdad. The media followed the Bush

2. administration and Pentagon slogan of "shock and awe" and presented the war against
Iraq as a great military spectacle, while triumphalism marked the opening days of the
U.S. bombing of Iraq and invasion.
The Al Jazeera network live coverage of the bombing of a palace belonging to the
Hussein family was indeed shocking as loud explosions and blasts jolted viewers
throughout the world. Whereas some Western audiences experienced this bombing
positively as a powerful assault on "evil," for Arab audiences it was experienced as an
attack on the body of the Arab and Muslim people, just as the September 11 terror
attacks were experienced by Americans as assaults on the very body and symbols of the
United States.
Even Al Jazeera and other Arab networks, as well as some European networks, talked
of an "invasion" and an illegal U.S. and British assault on Iraq.
Moreover, the U.S. broadcast networks, on the whole, tended to be more embedded in
the Pentagon and Bush administration than the reporters in the field and print
journalists. The military commentators on all networks provided little more than the
Pentagon spin of the moment and often repeated gross lies and propaganda, as in the
examples mentioned above concerning the U.S. bombing of civilians or the checkpoint
shooting of innocents. Entire networks like Fox and the NBC cable networks provided
little but propaganda and one-sided patriotism, as did, for the most part CNN. All these
24/7 cable networks, as well as the big three U.S. broadcasting networks, tended to
provide highly sanitized views of the war, rarely showing Iraqi casualties, thus
producing a view of the war totally different than that shown in other parts of the
world.
Media spectacles can backfire and are subject to dialectical reversal as positive images
give way to negative ones. Spectacles of war are difficult to control and manage, and
can be subject to different framings and interpretations, as when non-U.S. broadcasting
networks focus on civilian casualties, looting and chaos, and U.S. military crimes
against Iraqis rather than the U.S. victory and the evils of Saddam Hussein. It is
obviously too soon to determine the effects of Bush Junior's Iraq war but the
consequences are likely to be complex and unforeseen, thus rendering claims that the
adventure represents a great victory premature and possibly quite erroneous.
References:
1) https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/mediapropaganda.htm
2) https://www.transcend.org/tri/downloads/Peace%20Journalism%20Case%20S
tudy-%20US%20Media%20Coverage%20of%20the%20War%20in%20Iraq.pdf

3. The Ongoing Media Propaganda War Against Syria
In propaganda terms, as significant as the image last September of the dead Syrian
boy pictured “lying face down” on a Turkish beach was to the hawks in Whitehall
and Washington, a false media narrative against the government of President Bashar
al-Assad emerged some four and a half years earlier. The Syrian-Jordanian border
town of Daraa on March 17, 2011 was where the initial outbreak of violence began.
The media falsely portrayed the violence as a popular uprising against Assad that
was subsequently brutally suppressed by government forces as if it was a
continuation of the revolutions that had spread throughout vast swathes of the Arab
world in the months that preceded it. However, the number of policemen killed
(seven) was more than the number of demonstrators killed (four). This is hardly
indicative of the brutal actions of a government intent on suppressing its own
people.
Even the Western mainstream media narrative does not stand up to a moment
scrutiny. Also lacking credibility is the claim that Western bombing raids into Syria
are motivated by the need to destroy ISIS. These kinds of qualifications have been
absent throughout the mainstream media. Instead, all evidence that contradicts the
pro-Western media narrative is ignored and shunned.
The latest propaganda offensive is the mainstream media’s uncritical reports of the
role played in Syria by Channel 4 News and BBC Newsnight’s favorite openly anti-
Assad spokesman for the ‘independent‘ and ‘humanitarian’ group, White
Helmets, Ishmael Alabdullah. The October 4 edition of Channel 4 News which focused
a large segment of its programme to events in Syria – and included an interview
with Alabdullah- was among the most biased and distorted pieces of reportage ever
seen on British television, amounting to blatant UK-US government propaganda.
References:
1) http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-propaganda-syrias-destruction-by-the-lies-
of-the-western-media-washington-will-never-let-go-their-target-is-world-
hegemony/5549508
2) www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/03/russia-media-coverage-syria-war-
selective-defensive-kremlin
3) https://cultureandpolitics.org/2016/10/05/the-ongoing-media-propaganda-
war-against-syria/