January 10, 2006

More on Propaganda in a State of War

As most regular readers know, a lot of space in this blog has been devoted to arguing for the need for pro-American propaganda under war-time conditions. Those who object to American 'propaganda' neither have a firm grasp of the definition of propaganda (which is a morally neutral term) nor are familiar with our use of propaganda in the past (which has always been widespread, especially during war-time). Even more troubling are the moral implications given that some who are against the use of propaganda in war are not against killing in war! An odd moral hierarchy, to say the least.

An editorial at The Washington Post agrees. Via Glenn Reynolds this article by Reuel Marc Gerecht:

Once again we are confronted with stories about how the Pentagon and its ubiquitous private contractors are undermining free inquiry in Iraq. "Muslim Scholars Were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda," reports the New York Times. Journalists, intellectuals or clerics taking money from Uncle Sam or, in this case, a Washington-based public relations company, is seen as morally troubling and counterproductive. Sensible Muslims obviously would not want to listen to the advice of an American-paid consultant; anti-insurgent Sunni clerics can now all be slurred as corrupt stooges.

There is one big problem with this baleful version of events. Historically, it doesn't make much sense. The United States ran enormous covert and not-so-covert operations known as "CA" activities throughout the Cold War. With the CIA usually in the lead, Washington spent hundreds of millions of dollars on book publishing, magazines, newspapers, radios, union organizing, women's and youth groups, scholarships, academic foundations, intellectual salons and societies, and direct cash payments to individuals (usually scholars, public intellectuals and journalists) who believed in ideas that America thought worthy of support....

Why did the United States spend so much covert-action money in Western Europe after World War II? Washington was unsure of Western Europe's commitment to democracy and its resolve to oppose the Soviet Union and its proxy European communist parties. The programs had to be clandestine: The foreigners involved usually could not have operated with open U.S. funding without jeopardizing their lives, their families or their reputations. Did these CA projects retard or damage the growth of a free press and free inquiry in Western Europe after World War II? I think an honest historical assessment would conclude that U.S. covert aid advanced both.

Surely democracy in Iraq is at least as shaky as it was in Western Europe after the defeat of Hitler. The real complaint that ought to be made against the Bush administration is that it has allowed such important work to be contracted to a public relations firm (in the case cited above, the Lincoln Group) that has done a poor job of protecting anonymity. Nevertheless, one has to give the Pentagon credit: It seems to be the only government agency that is at least trying to develop Iraqi cadres to wage the "hearts and minds" campaign. The CIA seems to have all but abandoned its historical mission in this area.

The Bush administration shouldn't flinch from increasing its covert "propaganda" efforts in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. The history in the last great war of ideas is firmly on its side.

UPDATE from Joyner:

"Propaganda" has come to carry a pejorative connotation but it does not have to be a bad thing. Delivering information to persuade a target audience of your viewpoint is value neutral.

The battle over ideas is essential to a peaceful world; and to insist that the process of disseminating ideas be fair and balanced—that because we are a hyperpower, our use of propaganda is unseemly, whereas the use of propaganda by, say, al-Qaeda is a natural part of asymetrical warfare—is to engage not in self-righteous idealism, but rather to devolve into a moral relativism that disguises itself as high-mindedness. It is the CNN view of the world, one in which the purveyor of information forgets that s/he is supposed to be “objective� and not neutral, particularly where neutrality means resisting taking the side that is objectively pressing for freedom rather than, say, theocratic tyranny and medieval law.