Good Guys / Bad Guys

DISCLAIMER: I was opposed to the War in Iraq from the beginning, but this paper raises an issue that has little to do with my original position and that is as much a question as an assertion.

As any nation prepares for war, a fundamental decision must be made, a decision that usually gets lost after the hostilities end. The nation must determine how it will treat the enemy population in its propaganda war. In the case of the War in Iraq, a conscious decision was made by the administration in Washington to demonize the regime and to portray the Iraqi citizens as victims of the government. The Kurds and Shiites were oppressed by Saddam and many Sunnis were as well. But today long after formal war related hostilities ceased and we are in the midst of a major insurgency, I wonder if our initial decision in the propaganda war was the correct one.

Just who are our enemies in Iraq? In the run up to war, the president and his surrogates went to great lengths to separate the Saddam’s Baathist regime from the Iraqi people as our enemies on the War on Terror. This approach has been used in other wars in our history, but when it suited American interests and purposes, presidents took the opposite tack. Thus, in Iraq, the general population was not the enemy while in Germany in W.W.II it was.

In thinking about this, it must be acknowledged that millions of Iraqis not in the government were opposed to American policy and supportive of the Saddam regime. Based on our own propaganda, it appears that they were probably – indeed almost certainly – a minority of the people. While in Hitler’s Germany millions – almost certainly a majority – favored the regime’s expansionist adventurism.

Why did we not define all Iraqis as the enemy or the German people as victims of a tyrannical regime and not our enemy? It was a matter of policy for our leaders. From afar it would appear that either approach could have been taken – at least before we knew all of the facts about the cruelties and abuses in Germany that had to have raised suspicions in that country’s general population.

Those of us old enough to remember W.W.II understand that the nation’s propaganda machine must gear up the population for what is coming and that clearly includes how we are expected to view our enemies. The German people in the run up to conflict were the enemy but they were spared the worst of our vilification which was reserved for their Nazis masters.

Quite the opposite, the Japanese people were closely linked to their leaders and all kinds of racial overtones were included in readying the Americans to fight them. Prior to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, we were conditioned to think negatively about the Russian communists but when Hitler turned on them we were encouraged to think about them more positively since it was likely that they would soon be our allies against the Nazis. I won’t carry that on past 1945 when we had reverse course on them once again, but it’s clear that basic government policy gets translated when we begin to treat nations or governments as adversaries.

Movies made during W.W.II about the Japanese were as crude as possible in the depiction of our enemy. On the other hand, our Chinese allies were portrayed in the kindest possible light. This heavy duality must have been confusing to members of other Oriental ethnic groups.

The basic decision of how the population will be conditioned to view the enemy is made by all warring entities. Thus, under the very cruel regime of Stalin, significant numbers Western Soviets (Ukrainians and others) were more than willing to welcome the German invaders. Hitler’s mad policies on race and ethnicity made this an impossible gesture and the Germans greeted the potential collaborators savagely.

Conversely, the Russian people who had been treated far more cruelly than even Iraqis under Saddam rallied to the cause of the motherland and repelled the Germans. Even today after the all of the exposes on the terror of the Stalin regime, older Russians look back with nostalgia to Uncle Joe, a proven monster. Should not the Russian experience have been a guide for how a repressed population might react to invaders? No matter how cruel the regime, when the country is being attacked will not the citizens react adversely to an invading or occupying force?

How does a national administration make the decision? How do they determine that when they fight a nation its people will be defined as good or bad or willing participants or victims of their leaders? It seems to me that this is a judgment call based on all kinds of factors that include the breadth of perceived popular support for the government, how that decision will influence the outcome or duration of the war, the prospects for an easier settlement when hostilities end, and so on and so forth.

A basic question to be resolved in making the call on defining the population of the likely enemy is its general support for the regime, discounting the difficulties and conflicts that are leading to the war. Another way of determining this is asking whether the regime has the `consent of the governed.’ This concept underlies the basic question and purpose of government. Clearly, while there are deep divisions within democracies such as ours, the social compact is based on such consent.

The United States by its election last month ratified the Iraq War as having the consent of the governed. Many - even most - of us may disapprove of the war. We may see it as a mistake. We may feel it hurts us in the larger War on Terror. But while the Administration knows that there is much unhappiness with this war it is also cognizant that we are backing the government and recognize that we’re all in it together. The government of the Unites States is a government of, by and for the people and operates with the consent of the governed.

The Administration and the Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress know well that the War in Iraq has only nominal support and must be resolved sometime in the not too distant future or they are likely to be kicked of office as no longer having the confidence of or the consent of the citizenry.

I have not seen this debated about any war, but it must be done at some level of the government in every conflict. Obviously, its importance varies greatly, depending on the circumstances. After the war is won or lost, the question becomes a minor one since as in a losing effort such as in Germany in W.W.II the regime is destroyed and the question of how they thought about people such as the Russians is no longer material. In a winning effort, an immoral or cruel view of a defeated enemy population also gets lost in the euphoria and to history.

In Iraq, the decision by the Bush Administration was that we would define Saddam and his regime as evil and the people of the country as victims of the government. This, like every other decision was based on intelligence. There was a large Iraqi expatriate community providing input and our own and allied sources were also used. Most important was the idea that we were going to war for a wide variety of purposes, including the noble one of liberating long suffering victims of Saddam.

The decision was made and the propaganda war was set in motion. My guess, based on reading many articles and listening to many interviews was that the regime would collapse and the people of Iraq would welcome us and fall in line with the overthrow and establishment of a regime friendly to America.

In retrospect, this seems to be one of the gravest errors of the war, not because the Iraqis were not victims, not because Saddam did not have the consent of the governed, and not because we weren’t initially hated but because we were soon to be occupiers in another civilization. And in that context we are unable to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to friends and enemies walking the streets of Baghdad..

Our troops are now in the position of not being able to find insurgents who have blended in with the general population. And, of course, since we’ve defined the vast majority of Iraqis as welcoming allies. We’ve exposed our men and women in the military to what may well be an unacceptable risk. Had we gone to war with Iraq instead of just the regime, it would be incumbent upon innocent Iraqis to self identify themselves as our friends instead of placing our troops in the unenviable position of having to pick out the enemy insurgents from the general population.

My reaction is that instead of laughing at the stupidity of the decision which almost all Americans, including late night comedians, do we should be calling for an independent investigation on whether that basic decision was properly made in good faith and not a ploy to garner public support for an ill conceived war. If the latter was the finding, then just how badly has the decision affected our pacification of Iraq and how has it endangered our troops.

Had we defined Iraq as the enemy, we could approach the centers of insurgency in a far more aggressive fashion, and it would be up to far more of the good guys to show their white hats.

I’m no expert but I’d sure like to see an examination of this question and the need to hold people accountable for making a bad decision that may be costing us more in casualties and treasure than the opposite decision would..