Chapter 1: Introduction

Propaganda is defined as 'material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause'[2]. As such, it is arguably a vital component of freedom of speech. However, to identify a message as propaganda is "to suggest something negative and dishonest . propaganda is associated with control and is regarded as a deliberate attempt to alter or maintain a balance of power that is advantageous to the propagandist."[3] It is in such interpretations that propaganda ceases to be a neutral activity, unlike other forms of persuasion in which the message may benefit both the audience and communicator.

Propaganda as a function of state strategy during wartime can be synonymous with the distortion of or complete neglect of truthfulness. As Kevin Williams comments in his article on media ethics in wartime, "What is thought by many to be more important than telling the truth about war is winning it."[4]

However, war propaganda is not only used to help win wars, but can be employed well in advance in making a case for that war, a case which may be based on similar distortion.

History provides tangible examples of such practise. For example, a declassified memorandum from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 reveals a plan to justify proposed military intervention in Cuba. The document includes "brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba . World opinion, and the United Nations forum should be favourably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere."[5]

War propaganda therefore presents a subjective viewpoint which is designed to pave the way for war, protect operational security and the lives of service people, maintain morale, ensure commitment to a cause and "make certain that the 'enemy' is thoroughly hated"[6].

Governments are certainly not obliged to reveal every detail of their military operations. Indeed the UN human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR)[7] allows governments to restrict many rights including freedom of information during a declared 'State of Emergency'.

However, as will be discussed in the next chapter, the guidelines for operating within a state of emergency can be unclear in international law. In communication terms, the effect of this is a blurry division between appropriate censorship and unjustifiable withholding of information, and between appropriate restrictions of freedom of expression and the unsanctioned silencing of dissenting voices.

As Morrison and Tumber (1988) say with reference to UK government censorship in the Falklands War: "It appears to be commonly agreed that a government may legitimately withhold information on the grounds that its release might endanger its nationals' lives or jeopardise the security of an operation. The grey area, however, is in defining the scope of these categories. .The second category . is very wide and accordingly, the greatest controversy has centred on this."[8]

1.1 History

The waging of war is as old as the history of civilisation, with the earliest archaeological evidence of war dating back 12,000 years at the very beginning of settled, agricultural life.[9] And for as long as rulers and governments have needed to persuade their constituencies that a war is necessary and just, war propaganda has had a place in that history.

From Julius Caesar who is alleged to have said "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervour" to the communications strategies of the US and its allies in the Iraq war which began in 2003, propaganda has been an integral part of wartime policy.

The last century has seen wars waged against a backdrop of dramatic media coverage and government communication strategies have therefore necessarily become an integral part of the planning and execution of war. As the International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP) (2002) has stated: "In recent years, Western governments have developed complex communication strategies which they recognise are an important element of military planning in war, and political management in peace."[10]

Successful war propaganda is therefore related to a media which is unwittingly or unwillingly manipulated by the government, or which is a willing party to its propaganda. As the availability of mass media has exploded exponentially in the last century, so too have accusations of it acting as a conduit of government policy, limiting a diversity of views. With this in mind, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), which monitors implementation of the ICCPR, commented in 1983 that "little attention has so far been given to the fact that, because of the development of modern mass media, effective measures are necessary to prevent such control of the media as would interfere with the right of everyone to freedom of expression."[11]

The United States has recently wrestled with issues of media monopoly and control through controversial media ownership measures debated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The US also has one of the largest defence budgets in the world with a requested $399 billion for 2004 (Russia was in second place with a budget of $65 billion[12]). As self proclaimed leader of the free world and superpower, the war propaganda practises of the United States and its key ally Great Britain, will be given particular attention in the analysis below, both through the use of examples and with reference to their ratification of the relevant human rights treaties.

1.2 War propaganda and human rights

Rarely acknowledged, by the media, governments, or even NGOs and anti-war campaigners, is the fact that war propaganda is illegal under international law.

Article 20 of the ICCPR states that:

1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.

2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law."

Through its prohibition in article 20, war propaganda is acknowledged as being an opponent of human rights - and for good reason. War propaganda is capable of misrepresenting reality so that it compromises not just the abstract notion of truth, but also a wide range of human rights belonging to journalists, military personnel, and domestic, coalition and 'enemy' citizens[13]. It does this by:

• Firstly, limiting the availability of facts, context and transparency of political motivation. Such information, were it available, would allow objective judgements, decisions and opinions to be formed. For example in allowing citizens to answer the question "is the desire of our government to go to war valid and necessary?". Withholding such information therefore leaves citizens vulnerable to making erroneous political choices which compromise democracy and their participation in society.
  
  
• Secondly, war propaganda can encourage ignorance and create a climate of prejudice and fear which directly compromises human rights. For example, the media and public may ignore the extent of civilian casualties. In the first Gulf War, for example, two bombs dropped from a Stealth fighter-bomber on to a shelter in Baghdad, killing around 1,600 people, mostly women and children. As Phillip Knightly (2000) explains in his discussion on censorship of the war, "television film of the appalling carnage flashed around the world. The bombing and the death toll caused immediate outrage in the British and American press - not because the Allies had incinerated hundreds of women and children but because of the way the Western media had reported it. Television should not have shown the carnage; it was unpatriotic to do so." [14]
  
  This same prejudice means that other violations of the human rights of the enemy side may be tolerated as being necessary to the war effort, for example the numerous allegations of torture which have been levelled at US and British troops during the ongoing Iraq crisis. Meanwhile racial prejudice, discrimination and suspicion on home soil thrive, for example in the treatment of detainees under the British anti-terrorism legislation which the UK Special Immigration Appeals Commission found to be unlawful and discriminatory.[15]
  
  
• Thirdly, regions, countries, peoples and leaders are polarised as 'good' and 'evil' which pre-supposes a moral right to wage war on (or 'liberate') the enemy, and which attempts to establish the crusade of civilising goodness as a higher norm than respecting the rights of alleged 'evil-doers'. Such practises include President George W Bush's polarisation of North Korea, Iran and Iraq as the "axis of evil"[16] and Tony Blair's comment on the Kosovo war that it was not just a military campaign "it is a battle between Good and Evil; between civilisation and barbarity"[17].

Lee Wigle Artz and Mark Pollock (1995) analysed the caricatures that accompanied the first Gulf War, commenting:

"The singular demonisation of Hussein was accompanied by commonplace images of other Arabs - including US allies - as incompetent, weak, self-centred and incapable of diplomacy in their own region.The corollary, of course, was another powerful commonplace: the righteousness of a civilized Western world courageously defended by US soldiers. These images had little subtlety or variation."[18]

• Finally, war propaganda encourages the branding of dissenters among the domestic population and international community as traitors, terrorists or redundant. For example, in the US, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh was baited as a "media terrorist" by Pentagon advisor Richard Perle for opposing the 2003 Iraq war[19]. Meanwhile Donald Rumsfeld categorised France and Germany as 'old Europe'[20] for their unwillingness to support a war with Iraq and according to the US Administration, the UN "risked irrelevance"[21].

The disapproval and silencing of dissenting voices can therefore be officially sanctioned and encouraged. This silence can be achieved through a variety of means including pro-government media refusing access or via self-censorship for example from fear of losing one's job or social standing as has been the reported case with anti-war Hollywood actors.[22]

By selecting which voices are legitimate, war propaganda is thus capable of violating an array of human rights including the right to freedom of information, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom from discrimination, and freedom of the press.

In this way, the prohibition of war propaganda does not stand in isolation as a right, but is interwoven with various rights it helps to protect. Wars waged based on half-truths, misinformation and lack of accountability therefore compromise a whole spectrum of human rights of which the prohibition of war propaganda is the tip of the iceberg. By perpetuating a culture of might over right, war propaganda also compromises the very nature of democracy, giving rise to unjust political and social outcomes.