Propaganda And Insurgency
MichaelW on Jul 25 2007 at 7:17 pm | Filed under: Foreign affairs, MichaelW's Page, Military Matters, Notes on the war
The London Times reported Monday that al Qaeda is experiencing some internal discord over the gruesome tactics employed by the group:
Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.
The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.
“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.
Tigerhawk (HT: Wretchard) uses the article to make some interesting analysis of the general situation, relying on his 1983 senior thesis to provide the framework:
If true, this is good news … It is fashionable to identify and decry blowback against American foreign policy, in part because it is often obvious. Blowback happens to the other guy, too. Fine. The real question is whether this story is evidence that the United States is finally resolving the “coercion/intelligence dilemma.”
According to Tigerhawk’s theory (and I recommend that you RTWT), application of the “coercion/intelligence dilemma” to insurgencies can explain in broad terms who has the upper hand in the conflict. Using what appears to be basic game theory
(see a similar example here) one can look at how the general population, who is neither part of the insurgency nor supportive of the counterinsurgency, is incentivized to back one side or the other. This is the “coercion” side of the dillema:
In fact, most insurgencies begin with a nucleus of determined activists, and they usually confront a government that represents but a small fraction of the population (or a demographically discrete plurality or majority). In between the two groups lie the masses of the people, who rarely want anything more than to grow their food and say their prayers.
Neither side needs the love or loyalty of the population nearly as much as its cooperation. The insurgent must have nondenunciation so that he may carry on his war against the authority from the midst of the people. The counterinsurgent needs information, so that he may determine the nature, power and membership of the insurgency. Because a credible threat of sanction (death or torture, for example) frequently outweighs love or loyalty, the side that imposes stiff penalties for noncompliance will often win the cooperation of the people away from the side that inspires merely moral support for the merits of its cause. To the extent that cooperative action and the support of opinion among the population differ, there has been effective coercion.
He goes on to describe the different means of coercing the population, and posits that the level of “capriciousness” employed in the coercion is the key to success or failure:
Coercers fall into two general camps. The first would seek to cow a population through a combination of ferocity and caprice. One might, for example, terrorize a population into complying with one’s wishes by randomly burning down villages… The capriciousness can help to convey the impression of power; if however, the level of caprice is so high that compliance seems as dangerous as resistance (or noncooperation), the population will cooperate with the side it prefers. When that happens, coercion fails by definition.
The second sort of coercer seeks to create a language of force, through which coercion takes the form of an articulate expression of severity and regularity. The coercer establishes and communicates a well-defined list of desired actions, and punishes noncompliances in a manner closely and explicitly associated with infractions. The object is to gain cooperation consistently without sacrificing the support of the population, which may understand and accept the need for violence that it knows it can avoid by complying.
In short, the more capricious the coercion, the less likely it will be successful. Tigerhawk explains why this makes sense by pointing to the choices deduced by the non-combative population:
More concisely, a noncombatant will cooperate with the side that punishes noncooperation with the greatest specificity. If one side punishes capriciously, most rational noncombatants will decide that they are better off cooperating with the other side. Why? Because the more capricious side — lacking good intelligence about who is and is not cooperating — may punish noncombatants whether or not they cooperate with the other side. The side that punishes accurately, on the other hand, will only punish genuine noncooperation. Therefore, the smart noncombatant cooperates with the side that neither punishes too many actual cooperators or fails to punish too many actual non-cooperators, because he reduces his risk of punishment by the side that punishes efficiently without altering his risk at the hand of the side that punishes capriciously.
Said another way (hopefully without oversimplifying), the more predictable the punishment for non-compliance is, the more likely the non-combatant is to be moved by it. If a villager has roughly equal chance being killed by an insurgent’s bomb regardless of compliance with the insurgent’s edicts, but a very low likelihood of being subject to a counterinsurgent’s attacks if the villager is compliant, then that villager will be incentivized to comply with the counterinsurgency. The path of least resistance leads towards the side that allows the villager to most accurately predict the consequences of future actions.
Tigerhawk goes on to analyze the current counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq in light of his theory. The point that I find most interesting in his analysis is just how important a role perception plays in this game (my emphasis).
Al Qaeda’s methods of punishing noncooperation struck me as capricious; car bombs kill even more indiscriminately than American air strikes, so a noncombatant is at risk of dying from them whether or not he cooperates with al Qaeda.
The linked story suggests as well that al Qaeda’s brutality has widened the gap between the desires of the noncombatants among whom al Qaeda lives and operates and al Qaeda’s requirements for that population. That is, al Qaeda has to coerce a higher percentage of the population into cooperating, because they are less willing to coopoerate willingly.
[...]
Finally, it is crucial to remember that noncombatants measure relative caprice, efficiency, and brutality in punishment according to their perceptions. If one side is perceived as more capricious than the other, fewer noncombatants will cooperate with it. If one side is perceived as more brutal than the other, more noncombatants will have to be coerced into cooperating with it — that is, the side that is less popular because of its perceived brutality (and other considerations of popularity) will have to coerce more successfully in order to achieve the same level of cooperation. To some important extent, therefore, perceptions become reality.
So the more brutal and capricious the punishment is perceived to be by the non-combatant populous, the more time must be spent exacting compliance, and the less effective the coercion. Tigerhawk thinks that this may be what is happening to al Qaeda, if indeed the reporting is accurate. However, the counterinsurgency is just as subject to the perceptions of capriciousness and brutality, which is what makes the propaganda battle in this war so crucial to ultimate success. If the counterinsurgency is effectively branded as “occupiers” who indiscriminately brutalize the population, disrespect their families and/or religions, and brazenly exploit the non-combatants for their own gain, then the intelligence costs to the counterinsurgency go up, and the insurgency’s coercion costs go down. In real terms, the general population will be less sanguine about helping the counterinsurgency, even though they realize that the insurgents will make their life hell.
This does not mean that counterinsurgency mistakes and setbacks should not be reported, but instead that at least some semblance of balance be afforded the reporting. The AP making an unsubstantiated claim that 20 twenty beheaded and tortured bodies were found in Salman Pak, while refusing to report on al Qaeda atrocities committed outside the town of Baqubah, is a recent example of where reporting from Iraq got this precisely backwards. The poorly-checked stories printed by The New Republic is another. Tigerhawk explains it this way (my emphasis):
Because perceptions are so important in counterinsurgency, capricious acts and the publicity of those acts can actually hurt the war effort. When supporters of the Coalition and the government of Iraq object to the widespread and one-sided publicity of purported American war crimes, it is not that we think, a priori, that these events should be covered up or that we care about the political fortunes of the Bush administration. Rather, it is because we know that anything that increases the perception of the counterinsurgency as capricious will actually hurt the war effort insofar as it motivates noncombatants to cooperate with the other side. Similarly, relatively muted publicity of enemy atrocities artificially dims the perception that al Qaeda kills capriciously and brutally. Both problems would diminish if the press, which has an enormous capacity to magnify perceptions, applied the same moral standard to both sides.
The bolded part is the biggest liability to the US in this war, IMHO. The credulity with which the MSM and anti-war pundits approach any allegation of US mischief, no matter how far fetched, is stunning in comparison to the outright refusal to even acknowledge the routine barbarity that defines the terrorists. This penchant for screaming about perceived US perfidy from the roof tops undermines our ability to be successful in Iraq. While many of the thin-skinned Bush-haters war opponents like to whine about how they are being oppressed when anyone points that out, I think Tigerhawk nails it on the head: the worse we are made to look (i.e. perceived to be by normal Iraqis) the less likely we can succeed in Iraq. It really isn’t that difficult a concept. It would really be nice if those who claim that they want to see a positive outcome in Iraq could show that they understand it.
Technorati Tags: Iraq war, propaganda, media, counterinsurgency, insurgency, game theory
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The View From the Bluff: Lance’s Economic and Finance Blog
Excellent post, Michael. I’ve been pondering a post along these lines, but you’ve done much better than I would have.
Wow, that’s quite the compliment, Billy. I appreciate it.
Actually, I should add that Tigerhawk is the one that deserves the credit, seeing as how he was the one who set the framework for the topic and all. I just keyed on one aspect of his analysis.
Just the same, I’m glad you enjoyed it, Billy.
Michael, this is indeed good stuff, but I gotta play devil’s advocate here (sorry!). Are you certain it’s a media refusal to “publicize” al-Qaeda’s atrocity, or might it be a simple news calculation that radical Islamist crazies behaving like radical Islamist crazies isn’t exactly surprising or newsworthy? Put differently, how are you defining “publicizing?” I ask because for the majority of the war’s duration, one of the big pro-war complaints about “the media” (a formulation I have never liked) was that they needlessly and relentlessly publicize every little mass murder committed by the insurgents as evidence of our failure, while not publicizing things like schools being built (when they’re not pre-wired with explosives). I mean, just about every day the front page of the NYT and WaPo are filled with stories of the insane amount of violence
in Iraq, and only a portion of that is related to U.S. actions — most of it is about sectarian killings. So I think how you’re defining the media push really matters here.
On a similar bent, given the soft rhetoric of the U.S. military, when atrocities are reported shouldn’t that matter more, since we’re ostensibly there for their own good? I mean, if we preach about how we’re so compassionate and caring with a light footprint (something I believe to be true), doesn’t that therefore increase, rather than decrease, the newsworthiness of ways in which that might be shown false (or at the least, not as true)?
Just a thought. I honestly don’t know the full answer, though I do know the much-maligned MSM has people in Iraq of a variety of ideological bents, and writing off “the media” as a single mass of people needlessly limits the discussion.
Here’s another thought: much is being made of former combatants choosing to become informers for the Coalition. This also presents a classic dilemma: how do we know how far their loyalty lies? Does it stop at ethnic boundaries? Sectarian ones? Are they simply collaborating (to use Tigerhawk’s calculus) to wait out the surge before going back to exactly how they were before?
These are questions I don’t see being really seriously discussed, which is why I try to maintain a healthy dollop of skepticism about a few grunts switching sides.
This is actually a good point, and one I Have been meaning to address. It is certainly on the surface a bit of a contradiction to complain about the daily coverage of car bombings and other acts of barbarity to the exclusion of more positive developments, and simultaneously complain that al Qaeda and others barbarity is not being emphasized as much as we like. Pogue made that point a while back.
On the surface, that is.
Now, the NYT’s reporting on Iraq has actually been pretty good in my opinion, with the constant coverage you allude to being an issue, but John Burns for example has been excellent. As the situation turns more positive, the coverage by their main reporters has reflected that, and that has made them a target of the Greenwaldians for example. When things were looking pretty bleak last summer, Burns reporting reflected that, though without a sense of inevitability. That seems to have been the right tone to take, as it turns out many things (such as Anbar) were not inevitably lost to al Qaeda (and it was al Qaeda that was the lead horse despite some trying to downplay their role, as the effect of turning against them specifically demonstrates.)
So, while I have my beefs about an editorial page that doesn’t seem to read their own journalists reports stand, and I do feel the constant shallow reports on violence are an issue, their in depth reporting has much to admire, so my beef is not with the Times specifically.
The reason the reporting on violence isn’t sufficient to placate Michael or myself on showing the barbarity of our opponents, is that the coverage is not in depth. It gives a misleading view of actual conditions on the ground, it is not surrounded with discussion of the barbarity of our opponents in the same way that our own behavior is, nor does it look at the implications. It feeds this reaction:
Thus the violence is looked at as a problem with us and our actions rather than first and foremost a product of who we are fighting and why we should. Such a judgment might strike some as not a journalists job, though that is a relatively new claim about what journalism is, and is certainly abandoned when discussing any claimed misbehavior of ours. can you imagine a news story taking a neutral stance about US troops massacring a bunch of villagers in the manner we saw at Baqubah? Of course not. That doesn’t mean the story would outright state its outrage, but the entire way the event would be framed, the questions asked and debated would most certainly express disgust and dismay. Quite rightly by the way.
The means by which these judgments are expressed may be subtle, but the effect is rather palpable and easily seen. When a bombing or massacre occurs it is all about what we are not doing rather than the barbarism of the act itself and how we should think about that. Follow that up with the analysis of the facts and events themselves, which are then shaped in the media as about our failure than the desperation and disgust at our enemies. The reporting doesn’t happen in a vacuum. That it isn’t deemed newsworthy to continuously explore in depth seems a bit off when we consider the attention to this very day of the vicious excesses of the Nazis. Obviously exploring the depravity of our enemies can hold our attention for quite a long time, if that is how we wish to look at it. It should (as in the case of WWII, and yes I enjoy bringing it up when appropriate because it bugs some people so much) stiffen our resolve that they are so worthy of opposing, but when any “success” (if setting off a car bomb or the many other acts they commit because they cannot face us in the field can be called a success) is reported and analyzed as our failure (rather than theirs, because they cannot do much else) then our resolve is weakened.
This isn’t neutral reporting, and of course that is impossible, real value judgments are being made. Greenwald is in screeching fury because the Times most closely placed reporters are not working that narrative, he wants them to choose to report on everything the way he wants them to, to not look at Iraq from various angles. I want them to make value judgments as well, and I want them to be on the side of reporting the facts, but in light of the depravity of our enemies, the generally admirable behavior of our troops, and the possible benefits as well as drawbacks of what we do. So when the mass grave was discovered near Baqubah, the response shouldn’t have been to ignore it, nor to merely make it yet another example of how awful things are in Iraq expressed with demanding questions of our leaders about how it undermines claims of progress. Instead, how about also doing interviews with local leaders expressing their desire to help the coalition strike back, an exploration of what life was like in the town when al Qaeda was there, and possible areas of cooperation going forward. That is the kind of thing the better reporters in Iraq ask when confronted by such things, and unfortunately they happen to mostly not work in the MSM.
It depends once again how it is framed, usually through the types of questions being asked. Even if it is true, that doesn’t change its affect. It may be more newsworthy (though that may be more in the minds of editors than readers) it nevertheless has a negative affect far more than the massive atrocities of al Qaeda. That is something I would like news organizations to consider, or at minimum acknowledge. Not in some lecture about the importance of our own good behavior, but in their reporting on the war. Acknowledging explicitly in coverage the asymmetry would at least help readers, especially in other countries allow for it in making their judgments. From what I read, that has been tough to get out, though at least in Iraq the message seems to be finally being received by its people.
Anyway, newsworthiness isn’t what is being discussed. Whether it is more newsworthy or not, the damage is done. We have every right, and responsibility, when it comes to war to discuss how the media affects that, and how that could be changed. Since, as you often point out, this is an ideological and political information war, it seems to me the obvious corollary is that the primary distributor of that information is worthy of scrutiny.
First of all it is not a few grunts. The defection of the 1920 brigade is pretty darn significant to use just one example. As for your other questions, of course they have mixed motives. If we are to gain the populations support, or at least neutrality, by definition that means people who may not be totally on board. If the bar is their loyalty to everything we might want, it can never be topped. Counterinsurgency, or really victory in any military affair, implies the aquiessence of former enemies, not their undying loyalty. It is a subject being seriously discussed, and is at the heart of Petraeus’ deliberations. The point is not that now they may have agendas, but to instill an atmosphere where eventually those agendas seem less relevant, or impossible to achieve.
Can that be done? Yes. Will it? We will have to see. Learning to work together against a common enemy is an important step in counterinsurgency doctrine. It is often the starting point for much more. I hope it will be.
Lance, I still don’t get it. When “constant shallow reports on the violence” make up the vast proportion of coverage of the largest and most influential newspapers in the country (the Post’s coverage is similar), and people still complain that “the media” don’t do enough to cover the atrocities… I don’t know what you expect. Should the journalists embed with AQII? the Sadrists? I don’t know what your expectations are here, unless you’re demanding everyone turn into Michael Yon.
Here’s the thing. We invaded the place, and as a direct result of that invasion, there is now increased violence, misery, and crimes against humanity. Discussing that in the context of the foreign invasion that enabled it is not out of bounds… in fact, I think that is more cogent in thinking about context than, say, the standard lists of recent casualty trends at the ends of the AP and Reuters wires (like the typical July dip in killings, which then tend to pick up again in August).
Again, I don’t know what you want, aside from the reporters actively shilling for the U.S. Which would make them propaganda. And we already have pro-America propaganda in the form of the independent embeds and various DoD sources. The asymmetry in reporting you note tends to heavily favor the Americans, from what I’ve seen — the in-depth reporting on atrocities when they happen (like the massacre at Haditha) should certainly be explored at length, and the casualties are relevant to the public’s cost calculation when considering whether or not the war is worth it.
But when you just look at the coverage, at the amount of space devoted to atrocities committed by them versus blunders committed by us, the number of “them” pieces, by words and by page space, is far far far greater. This tells me “the media” actually is reporting things in a way that should favor the Coalition… that it hasn’t resulted in more support, from my perspective (with you knowing what it is), seems to indicate that most people have looked at the same data—knowing full well that the enemy is brutal and horrid and will commit more atrocities—and still concluded we cannot improve things, because we have not improved things.
The other day in Slate, Fred Kaplan related something very interesting from Steven Biddle, who is one of the main strategists involved in crafting the surge:
To me, it isn’t.
Lance, is this what you mean? “Blast Kills at Least 25 in Long-Secure Baghdad Neighborhood”
It’s worth reading it all to see what I mean, but are you telling me that is totally lacking in context because it does not repeat ad nauseum that the people butchering innocent people buying clothes are in fact bad people who need to be stopped?
Josh:
Without going point-for-point, let me just say that the biggest problem with the media coverage of this war is its failure to define just who we’re fighting. Stories about Abu Ghraib and Haditha are beaten to death in the press, and they are used to define the US as brutal, insensitive and oppressive. Those are qualitative judgments about our actions in Iraq, and about the war itself.
There are no such judgments (or, at least, very few) passed by the media about the brutality that is al Qaeda and its adherants UNLESS such stories can be framed in a way that questions the wisdom of toppling Saddam. When such focus and scrutiny is palced on our behavior, and such credulity is displayed by the media in accepting as true any account that places us in a bad light thus undermining any possible support for the war, we lose just a little bit more ground to the terrorists.
Tigerhawk’s analysis explains in very logical terms why that is so.
I thought I explained the problem with that. Obviously I didn’t do a good job.
It is how you cover it that makes a difference. I don’t have time to draw that out at the moment, since I failed yesterday obviously, so I’ll leave it at that until later.
Not possible, but they could certainly move more in that direction.
MichaelW, I agree with you that the violence is often posed in terms of questioning whether we should have deposed Saddam’s regime or not. The thing is, I think this is healthy: after all, THESE atrocities are happening specifically because of our invasion, and now even the most die hard war supporters (like Michelle Malkin) can only say that we didn’t make things any worse (I’m speaking of the new analysis of casualties, which found “no statistically significant difference” between before and after the invasion, which, while it’s good we didn’t usher in a new holocaust, should be weighing very heavily on the minds of people who continue to support the war).
As for defining who exactly we’re fighting… well, if you can do that, then you’re many steps ahead of the DoD, our entire intelligence community, and anyone in Iraq. The UK Ministry of Defense recently tried to assess what exactly it is the Coalition is facing in Iraq, and said there were several dozen to upwards of 75 separate militias and sectarian groups, all committing acts of violence against each other and the people groups they represent, and all with their own agendas, motivations, desires, and policies. For example, who planted that bomb today: which militia group? How does it get dealt with in a way that can either neutralize it or partner with it (as we did in Anbar) such that its competitors aren’t emboldened to take on new action?
It is that – the incomprehensible complexity of the groups all competing against each other – that makes me think we’re doomed to futility. You don’t fight a self-organizing network (which is what they are when you get down to it) with a surge of troops.
As for you, Lance… well, I respect Michael Yon, and I do appreciate what he does. But he is a mouthpiece of the Army. He could be writing feature-length press releases for defenselink.mil and not really change a thing about his style. While people like him do serve a purpose, I’d rather have a free press that questions the political leadership and to a certain degree calls them on their bullsh*t and holds them accountable to the public. They certainly don’t always do that, but as a whole they do.
Whatever your feelings of it, I don’t see how we’re well-served by propaganda.
Joshua;
You are transparently pushing an agenda, with the main tool being your disingenuous refusal to acknowledge that there is a massive difference between piling on of carbomb stories with the virtually overt intention of communicating that Iraq is in chaos and it’s the US’ fault, and highlighting, at least occasionally, instances of vicious massacres like the “Beasts and Children” story. It is clear that the latter omission is because they don’t fit the narrative.
If depicting the AQI etc. as terror-mongers and the US forces as liberators is propaganda, well, so what? Fair’s fair, and both sides deserve air time and print space. The uncritical dissemination of Al-Jazeera style anti-liberation propaganda by the MSM and its sullen refusal to cover or transmit the opposing narrative is hardly in doubt. Or possible to misinterpret. Though you’re giving it a good shot.
Nope, not buying it. You’re angry “the media” didn’t report an atrocity a freelance journalist was around to cover, when even he said there was no malice in their lack of coverage (merely what it was – a lack of an available reporter). That’s not the same as actively and deliberately carrying water for an enemy you people still have yet to define — after all AQI, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency, is only about 15% of the insurgency. Who are the other 85%? What combination of militias and sectarian groups make up “the enemy,” and how are they to be distinguished from the other militias and sectarian groups we’re now teaming up with?
Those sorts of questions — just as honest reporting of a long string of car bombings (which you bet your ass would be major news and dominate the cycle if it happened in a western country) don’t imply malicious toward anything beyond your hurt pride that the war isn’t going well. When even your favored warbloggers can’t really say anything bad about the actual MSM reporters they’re embedded with (in particular the dread NYT, whose embeds have been praised repeatedly), I don’t think you have much argument for what you’re saying.
No Josh, wrong. That bombings would carry the headlines in a western country does not excuse shallow coverage in a war zone. In fact, focusing on the 15% number is shallow as well. We do need a better understanding of the insurgency, but the 15% figure is misleading.
As for the lack of a reporter, well that is the point about them adopting lazy narratives with limited actual knowledge. Lacking real insight we get car bombings. if you think it is just laziness, and not a willingness to be lazy because they already had the story written in their minds ahead of time, then so be it. However, they sure seem able to dig when it doesn’t. I can just see the First Gulf War coverage (todays top news, artillery shells exploded, many Iraqi’s dead, 4 US casualties) I mean, that would be news if it happened in DC right?
As for the reporters who do get out, I think they do do a pretty good job. Yon himself praises a number of them, and yet has the same criticism as we do, including the reliance on unreliable stringers, especially by the AP. It isn’t cognitive dissonance, it is a different issue. Burns, Alexandra Davis, and a number of others (including O’Hanlon and Cordesmann) have done good work. Ironically, as they and all the others venture out to assess the surge and progress in Anbar they seem to be giving us a rather nuanced view. Good, I am glad of it. I just wish those stories were on the front page on a regular basis instead of the bombing and casualty counts. The news is bad, and good. I enjoy it.
The word by the way was narrative, not carrying water (though that is what it amounts to at times, unwittingly or not.) If a great many had been more questioning of their prejudices before progress in Anbar was so obvious as to be unavoidable don’t you think the debate would have been better last Spring? Some were noting it last Winter. Some noted that they were doing things which likely would make difference before even that. Most (trying to be generous, since somewhere you might find somebody) of the MSM press corp, even the good ones like Burns, were nowhere. I was seeing an incredible turnaround from the military, bloggers and others in Anbar while reading people in the media and political class talking about the deteriorating situation and how Anbar had long been lost. Don’t you think the American people deserved better coverage than that? I almost felt sorry for the sockpuppet’s silly piece on the first few reports in the major media as a scandal of un-objective reporting in May, because those first reports were about a three day lull? Or so the media had made it appear. Instead the puppet looks the fool since the story had been developing since at least last fall in reality.
We even have as hostile a source as Der Speigel noting not only the emerging possibility of some measure of success, but acknowledging, even though it is not highlighted, so I will, the media’s failure
Since the world knows of Iraq through the media the indictment is clear. The media has failed to provide what we need because many don’t want to believe. The choice of the word want is notable and apt for many. This passage also applies:
That sure seems to be making Michael’s point to me.
This is about excusing shallow or lazy coverage, but accusing reporters of malice. I see no evidence for that, though I do see significant evidence for reporters being afraid of having their heads chopped off… and being blamed for it by bloggers complaining they’re not reporting enough of the “real Iraq.”
“not.” This is “not” about. Argh.
Wow, Josh. Talk about missing the point. Where in your long list of strawman to slay do you actually address the point of the post or BrianH’s comment?
There absolutely is a “narrative” and the media has become much less shy about it, so I’m not sure why you’re pretending there isn’t one. That media narrative routinely approaches terrorist claims with complete credulity while automatically treating anything coming from our side as a lie. Skepticism isn’t the problem here, and indeed a whole lot more of it when dealing with enemy claims would be most welcome. The problem is that our own media, and that of much of the west, gets routinely used by the terrorists for disseminating their propaganda because those delivering the “news” have a political and/or ideological disagreement with Bush and/or America. Watching Al Qaeda, et al., play the MSM is like seeing like Liberace and Little Richard performing “The Rose” on a rhinestone encrusted piano; both are equally disgusting to watch.
Maybe I should pose an incendiary question: which group, “the terrorists” you still can’t define, or the Bush Administration, has a richer history of lying about their aims, goals, and methods… and would therefore be more worthy of skepticism?
Sorry, Joshua, even your excuse for the MSM is lame. There was a reporter (NYT ??) within 3½ miles of the village. Yon couldn’t interest him in visiting the site.
I wonder why … NOT.
Yon offered his material — photos, videos, names, numbers, etc. all FREE to AP etc. till the end of July. Not a nibble.
Gee, I wonder — no, I don’t. Neither do you.
Who says I can’t define the terrorists? They pretty much do that on their own. If you’re having trouble, they’re the ones with the funny accents who have a ken for suicide bombings and lopping off the heads of infidels.
As far as who is more worthy of skepticism, while your oh-so frank delivery is perhaps a bit too suggestive of the only answer you’ll accept, I tend to vote for skepticism all the way around. If I had to choose, however, I’d go with the blokes who are much less likely to want to lop off my head. YMMV.
But Michael, your first answer is not at all true. We’re teaming up with those funny-accented men with a thing for head chopping and suicide belts… when it suits us. We have not defined who the enemy is in Iraq — while Lance complains the teeny size of AQI means nothing, I still see nothing about how we come to decide which militia we team up with to ‘clear’ an area, and which we continue to mount operations against. It’s incoherent.
And I agree skepticism is warranted all around. But I also think there is a big difference between “being given bad information by stringers who turned out to be unreliable” and “actively being credulous toward terrorists.” I just don’t see any evidence of the latter… or, perhaps in a broader sense, how these reporters could even possibly do better. Yes, it was dumb the AP didn’t send a reporter to a village… how that applies to the other hundred media groups in Iraq, I don’t know. Did Yon contact the AP reporter to see why he wouldn’t come over? Did he know the reporter got his message, or didn’t have other things to do, or was told it still wasn’t yet safe? There remains critical context missing from these blanket condemnations — and an awful lot of broad stereotypes that don’t advance the argument much.
The terrorists Josh. It isn’t even close. I disagree with you at times, that is part of the fun of it, but that is pretty hard to believe. Listening to the lies emanating for the jihadists video’s and tapes is excruciating. Yes, that is incendiary. Mission accomplished. Apply that standard to Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Truman, Wilson or Roosevelt by the way. The jihadists come in last, Bush doesn’t come in all that low at all, though granted, that is a pretty low bar. Or let us make it an international comparison, Bush versus the last 50 years of French Presidents? Italian leaders? I could go on. Criticize Bush, but let us not be naifs or cranks.
No, it is accusing them of adopting a narrative, which unless they have compelling evidence they do nothing to challenge. For many it is based in their malice towards the administration, I don’t think most reporters would deny that that malice is real (leave aside that some of it may be justified) just that it affects their reporting. Compelling evidence requires challenging your own assumptions and digging, such as seeing what was happening in Anbar last Fall and Winter rather than just noticing that violence was still happening. They missed the story. It wasn’t recognized until after the fact. I am not saying all of the reporters are so filled with malice as to actually lie (though some are) and claim that Anbar is worse, or deny the obvious if incomplete progress we have seen recently. That is the extent of it though, it has to slap them in the face to move from their lazy narrative. Some reporters have noticed, many who have been quite critical of the war. They either have held their fire or didn’t want to see it, but as they see the changes in the situation the disconnect has been obvious, as the Der Spiegel story makes clear. More along those same lines:
“Deaf.” Quite a choice word, as in unwilling to hear. “Blind,” as in unwilling to see. “Blind to possibility,” as in being unwilling to lose their smug certainty.
I understand their fear. However, you shouldn’t then pretend you know what you do not, or compress the coverage until “Iraq has become nothing but a series of attacks, a collection of images of bombings and victims” because it fits what you want to believe and is easier than doing your level best to figure it out. If they can’t do better then yes, just let the military give their version to fill the airtime and we can get the counterpoint from someone else.
Wait, so then I need to hear why one narrative (pro-military) is some then objectively superior or truer to reality than any of the others floating about in war coverage. Because if you’re arguing the superiority of one sort of bias above others, then I don’t think we’d be able to resolve this — it would be like arguing whether caramel is superior to raspberry (yes, I know the stakes are obviously higher, but you know the point I’m driving at).
Is that all you guys are saying? You’re bummed “the media” (which I take it to mean some reporters and editors) isn’t hewing closely enough to your preferred line of propaganda?
Obviously you are irritated, and my responses seem to irritate you more. The whole conversation would go better if you stopped claiming things I didn’t say. Then we wouldn’t have to go into endless digressions which are pointless because you misrepresent them as well, leading to more, and well it is a loop. assume someone means something ridiculous and look at it just the right way and you can act as if everybody else is stupid, but it makes for poor discussion. I never said what you claim above, though that it is teeny is a bit of an odd statement. If 15% is teeny, then the insurgency is pretty small.
What I said is concentrating on that percentage is misleading. How that translates to “means nothing” is unclear, but let’s move on. Pilots are a small percentage of our military, I don’t think they are insignificant. So it is with many things. al Qaeda is a key problem in escalating violence, and the most vicious and violent of our foes. Their impact, as the military points out as well, is far more than the 15% figure suggests, assuming it is true. That is also because of their impact and influence on other groups.
Before you reply, please read carefully what I said before responding. If I didn’t actually say it, don’t act as if I do.
Maybe, though to what extent that is true is pretty unclear. Were the 1920 brigade for example part of the head choppers? I know they fought us, and they allied with al Qaeda (which is part of why al Qaeda is so much more than 15%) but how involved were they with such things? I am not sure, please educate me if you have some real insight there.
Still, if we were refusing to try and turn groups such as these to our side you would be slamming us. That is one of the major ways these kinds of wars are won. You don’t have to like it, but it is true. That you find it incoherent says more about your mindset about our effort than the attempt to separate and develop a coherent set of allies. I thought it was the Bush administration which was inflexible and refused to compromise or make peace with enemies. Personally I hope they stay former enemies. As for operations still being mounted against particular groups, Please provide exactly what you are talking about, with links, because that could mean many things. Though I see nothing incoherent, there are numerous reasons, including that one part of a group is a problem, but others we are trying to stop being a problem.
That isn’t what I am arguing, but the military can give their view, and we can let Greenwald give his. Or, they can do their damn job! We have examples of how to do it, you have even brought up some. Let us see some more.
“actively being credulous toward terrorists.” I just don’t see any evidence of the latter
What?!! You have got to be kidding. You can argue that it isn’t as big a problem as Michael says it is, but no evidence? Do we need to waste space recounting the number of stories picked up by just AP stringers and published with it seems no due diligence? Seriously, because if we do, I will. We had one just the other day that has been confirmed false, yet again. That doesn’t even count the number of stories where all we have is the terrorists and the stringers word for it. We don’t know they are false, though evidence suggests they are, but the AP stands firm by their reporters. Other organizations have suffered similar embarrassments. Hence the term ‘Pallywood” for example. The Jamil Hussein story. Whoever he was, the story was false. Please Josh, not enough evidence, too little evidence, subjective to a degree, but “no evidence?”
Lance, I gotta apologize. No more skimming these comments during short breaks at work, then…
As for the no evidence bit. I also again apologize for my improper use of hyperbole. I should have said “no evidence it is systematic or deliberate.” When you get down to it, all news is hearsay, unless the reporter witnesses it himself. So Yon, for example, is a great source for what his unit sees and does… for everything else, he’s just repeating what someone else says—which could be more or less reliable than the much-maligned stringers (who do, it should be noted, have access to areas white journalists simply do not because of the danger).
So we’re stuck. Our reporters can go get first-hand reports of areas the military has yet to clear, at least without an unreasonable risk of kidnapping and murder, so they rely on locals. Some get it wrong, some outright lie. So do our own guys, too.
One reporter I sorely miss is Steven Vincent. In his book, In The Red Zone, he did what I wish all these reporters would do: live among regular, on-the-street Iraqis. He had a deep love for them as a people (and was, according to his wife, considering marrying his interpreter so she could be taken from the country because the U.S. would not let her emigrate despite the threats to her life). Vincent was, quite tragically, kidnapped and beheaded. But his reporting lives on, as a record of the early years of the occupation, colored by nothing but the opinions of the Iraqis themselves—whose real opinions are sorely missing from most reporting. It’s all kabuki now, I feel.
Of course, other journalists know Vincent’s lesson as well—hence the stringers, hence the bloggers who only embed with the military, and never go anywhere without protection. It is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s fair to call it systemic or symptomatic of anything other than the complicated problem of getting reliable information in a chaotic war zone.
Okay, we are getting somewhere. Still, I think it is systemic that they accept what fits their narrative, and don’t as readily what doesn’t. That may be inescapable, but then yes, I wonder why a narrative that favors the aim of our enemies is so easy to slide into versus one that is less so. Maybe not a mouthpiece for the administration, then a more realistic one such as Burns at his most depressed about the situation has been able to maintain. One that sees what al Qaeda does as more worthy of attention and commentary than far lesser issues from our own soldiers. The interest isn’t there except as a sign of chaos, not a point for analysis, to illustrate, to enlighten. Yon’s report has a far different impact than typical stories on such things do. We can be reductionist and claim that things like that are reported all the time if you want, but it squeezes out the important differences. Yon informed, most stories just report. Yon educates, most reports just obscure. I am all for you defending those reporters who are doing a good job, but it isn’t the norm.
As for the NYT, I wish the editorials read as if the editors actually read their reporters stories. Often they don’t.
Joshua;
Still doesn’t wash. Yon is punctilious about identifying sources, and when repeating another’s words, says so and identifies the person. Much of his material is raw, first-hand observation, complete with photos, names, dates, times, etc.
His standards are so much higher than the MSM’s reports that it’s laughable to compare them.
Apples and oranges, and if you’re going to cop an attitude you should at least compare two similar things.
A blog with an infinite amount of space is not comparable to a newspaper or television show with enormous capital expenditure and limited physical space. Truth be told, I’d say Yon’s job is far easier, as he has relatively fewer constraints — it’s much easier to post what amounts to a book chapter than a 700-word dispatch. You know the aphorism — “I’m sorry, I didn’t have the time to be brief.”
I honestly don’t know this: how does Yon handle anonymous sources (i.e. people too afraid to be publicly identified)? Are they automatically more or less reliable than some other reporter? If so, why or how?
Besides, a real reporter provides those things to his editors and producers, and he then writes a condensed version for publication. The Scott Thomas Beauchamp (and other scandals) are notable for how those news agencies did not do their due diligence, as Lance pointed out.
IIRC, Yon treats anonymous sources like every other reporter, although he is very good about establishing whether or not their claims can be verified. I don’t know if I’ve seen any claims asserted as fact from Yon that didn’t have a named source backing them up.
But the problem hasn’t been so much with the reporters out in the trenches (although the narrative is taken with them into the battlefield), as has been the editors back home. I’ve read numerous complaints from reporters about how the entire gist of their reporting was changed before printing, so much so that the reporter didn’t recognize his/her own work.
The problem with reporting to fit the narrative is as I explained here:
If you have a narrative in mind when reporting a story, you tend to look for evidence to support that story, and you will either be unaware of or ignore any facts that don’t fit the narrative. That’s not reporting. That’s making an argument. Reporters aren’t supposed to make arguments, but instead to report ALL of the facts to the best of their ability to gather them. Reporting to a narrative doesn’t allow for that duty to be fulfilled.
Michael, I agree with you. But the complains here seem to be about competing narratives, and not necessarily the objective facts on the ground. The embedded war bloggers have their own narratives they filter their stories through — you just happen to agree with them, so you don’t see them as wrong or misguided.
I don’t see narratives as necessarily a bad thing, so long as you can filter them. We have enough competing narratives to be able to do that, but “the other side” is just as important in a balanced news diet as the one you agree with.
I think we are getting to the point where we have enough competing narratives, but the MSM as an (somewhat vague, granted) entity does not. So if we find the MSM to be dominated by that narrative, and unlike Yon, Totten or Burns, not nearly as interested (whether it is the editors or reporters) in questioning thier narrative, then it is not quite a stirring defense to say, “but other outlets have other narratives.” It is the “mainstream media” isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be more diverse in how it sees the world (which is not a complaint specific to the Iraq war.) Does a freelance journalist such as Yon really provide the needed diversity in comparison to the scope of the major newspapers, networks and wire services? They get to print what they want, I don’t have to like its consistent tilt. Rarely is that fraud, but a tilt is not only there, it is pronounced. This isn’t necessarily partisan, as the tilt actually aligns with several of my views. You will not hear me arguing with the left (as in socialists and more) that they are not represented, because they are not either. Unlike them however, they probably are over represented, if not dominant, given their actual percentage of the population. Republicans and conservatives are not, though that has been changing.
Iraq seems to reflect that. I am not as bitter about that as many, in fact since it dovetails with many of my own prejudices, I generally shrug it off. I won’t act as if it doesn’t exist.
The MSM as active player and shaper of attitudes and events is malign. The Cronkite legacy is seemingly something that reporters and editors embrace and aspire to extend. That it was entirely contra-factual and ultimately murderously destructive seems not to figure.
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