The Tyranny of Imagery
Another example is civilian casualties. The public and the media rightly believe that innocent civilians on the other side must be spared. Yes, you can kill Saddam Hussein and his cronies. But when hostile Iraqis fire on our troops from teeming neighborhoods, the TV images of innocent women and children killed and wounded are inevitable. TV images of civil destruction bring pressure to pull out. Global television means we can watch bombs falling and soldiers dying, bringing home the reality of warfare in ways never experienced before, not even in Vietnam, making it almost inconceivable that a western country could ever again fight a war of attrition like Vietnam, with every misstep covered in high-definition detail.
Then there is the desire to achieve a clear and decisive victory at the end of the fighting. We are used to signing ceremonies-remember the USS Missouri when Japan surrendered, and the white flags that end wars in the movies? That old framework no longer applies with terrorists and nonstate extremist groups. So wars today last longer than the public expects or wants. This is true of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and of Israel's involvement in Lebanon. A final observation: When our political leaders seek to build public support for military intervention by claiming "our aim is victory," their promises often exceed the reality of the possible. This can only increase the frustration of the public and the media.
Television today has collapsed the time frame in which military action can hope to sustain public support. Once the military conflict becomes a consistent top-of-the-news story, the klieg lights of the global media will affect the scope of military activity. This is especially true in areas where we have to take into account the role of al Jazeera and al Arabiya, which emphasize the negatives of any involvement of the United States in the Middle East. These are just some of the issues that highlight the differences between the old frameworks of conventional wars and the new irregular wars.
In Iraq, the seemingly endless images of death and destruction are now driving the government agenda, coloring the politics of both parties, and may, perhaps ultimately, force a decision on when and how to pull American troops out. The violence, of course, particularly in the past week and month, is terrible. But it shouldn't obscure the fact that much of Iraq is relatively peaceful and that progress in many areas-restoration of infrastructure, building of schools-is being made. Many journalists, and not just TV journalists, are drawn to conflict and drama and feel little need to provide context or reflect on the conflicting moral pressures that bear on the policymaker. But they are inevitably distorting the story in Iraq when they concentrate on showing American soldiers blown up and focus so little on the benefits they have brought there. Is it any wonder so many Americans today have concluded that the Iraq venture was a political miscalculation and an unalloyed military disaster?
What are policymakers to do? Not deceive, dissemble, and shut off access, for sure-but think more deeply about how to respond to the imperatives of television journalism. When Saddam's regime fell and the insurgency began, the Pentagon offered no images to counter the endlessly repeated scenes of burning American vehicles, smoking Iraqi buildings, and bodies strewn haphazardly through the streets of Baghdad. One bombed hotel is more noteworthy than a hundred rebuilt schools. Donald Rumsfeld almost certainly never considered the effect of seeing hordes of looters making off with Iraq's national treasures. The defense secretary was understandably irritated by all the focus on the looters after our troops had performed so brilliantly, but he would have been much better served if the Pentagon had provided some images of successful relief efforts or Saddam's atrocities.
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