9/11, Spectacles of Terror, and Media
Manipulation:
A Critique of Jihadist and Bush Media Politics
By Douglas Kellner
Abstract.
The September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. dramatized the
relationship between media spectacles of terror and the strategy
of Islamic Jihadism that employs spectacular media events to promote
its agenda. But U.S. administrations have also used spectacles
of terror to promote U.S. military power and geopolitic ends, as
is evident in the Gulf war of 1990-1991, the Afghanistan war of
fall 2001, and the war on Iraq of 2003. In this paper I argue that
both Islamic Jihadists and two Bush administrations have deployed
spectacles of terror to promote their political agendas. Both also
deploy Manichean discourses of good and evil which themselves fit
into dominant media codes of popular culture. Criticizing the role
of the U.S. broadcasting media in presenting the September 11 terror
spectacle and subsequent Bush Terror War, I argue against both
Islamic terrorism and U.S. militarism, call for multilateral and
global responses to terrorism and rogue regimes. I also argue that
the Internet is the best source of information concerning complex
events like Terror War, while mainstream U.S. corporate media,
especially broadcasting, have become instruments of propaganda
for the Bush administration and Pentagon during spectacles of terrorism
and war.
The September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center
in New York and on the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. were shocking
global media events that dominated public attention and provoked
reams of discourse, reflection, and writing. These media spectacles
were intended to terrorize the U.S., to attack symbolic targets,
and to unfold a terror spectacle Jihad against the West, as well
as to undermine the U.S. and global economy. The World Trade Center
is an apt symbol of global capitalism in the heart of the New York
financial district, while the Pentagon stands as a symbol and center
of U.S. military power. In this study, I suggest how terrorists
have used spectacles of terror to promote their agenda in a media-saturated
era and how two Bush administrations have also deployed terror
spectacle to promote their geo-political ends.
Terror Spectacle
Terrorists have long constructed media spectacles of terror to
promote their causes, attack their adversaries, and gain worldwide
publicity and attention. There had been many major terror spectacles
before, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Hijacking of airplanes
had been a standard terrorist activity, but the ante was significantly
upped when in 1970, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
hijacked three Western jetliners. The group forced the planes to
land in the Jordanian desert, and then blew up the planes in an
incident known as “Black September” which was the topic
of a Hollywood film. In 1972, Palestinian gunmen from the same
movement stunned the world when they took Israeli athletes hostage
at the Munich Olympic Games, producing another media spectacle
turned into an academy award winning documentary film.
In 1975, an OPEC (Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries)
meeting was disrupted in Vienna, Austria when a terrorist group
led by the notorious Carlos the Jackal entered, killing three people
and wounding several in a chaotic shootout. Americans were targeted
in a 1983 bombing in Beruit Lebanon, in which 243 U.S. servicemen
were killed in a truck bombing, orchestrated by a Shiite Muslim
suicide bomber, that led the U.S. to withdraw its troops from Lebanon.
U.S. tourists were victims in 1985 of Palestinians who seized the
cruise ship Achille Lauro, when Leon Klinghoffer, 69, a crippled
Jewish American, was killed and his body and wheelchair were thrown
overboard.
In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed in New York by Islamist
terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden, providing a preview of the
more spectacular September 11 aggression. An American born terrorist,
Timothy McVeigh, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, killing 168 and wounding more than 500. And the
bin Laden group had assaulted U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998
and a U.S. destroyer harbored in Yemen in 2000. Consequently, terror
spectacle is a crucial part of the deadly game of terrorism and
the bin Laden group had systematically used spectacle of terror
to promote its agenda. But the 9/11 terror spectacle was the most
extravagant strike on U.S. targets in its history and the first
foreign attack on its territory since the war of 1812.
In a global media world, extravagant terror spectacles have been
orchestrated in part to gain worldwide attention, dramatize the
issues of the terrorist groups involved, and achieve specific political
objectives. Previous Al Qaeda strikes against the U.S. hit a range
of targets to try to demonstrate that the U.S. was weak and vulnerable
to terrorism. The earlier 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New
York, the embassy assaults in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the
attack on the USS Cole in 2000 combined surprise with detailed
planning and coordination in well-orchestated, high concept terror
spectacle.
Terrorism thus works in part through spectacle, using dramatic
images and montage to catch attention, hoping thereby to catalyze
unanticipated events that will spread further terror through domestic
populations. The September 11 terror spectacle looked like a disaster
film, leading Hollywood director Robert Altman to chide his industry
for producing extravaganzas of terror that could be used to attack
the country. Was Independence Day (1996) the template for
the disaster in which Los Angeles and New York were attacked by
aliens and the White House was destroyed? The collapse of the WTC
indeed had resonances of The Towering Inferno (1975) that
depicted a high-rise building catching on fire, burning and collapsing,
or even Earthquake (1975) that depicted the collapse of
entire urban environments. For these two Hollywood disaster films,
however, the calamity emerged from within the system, in the case
of the first, and from nature itself in the second. In the September
11 terror spectacle, by contrast, the villains were foreign terrorists
obviously committed to wreaking maximum destruction on the U.S.
and it was not certain how the drama would end or if order would
be restored in a “happy ending.”
The novelty of the September 11 terror acts resulted from the
combination of airplane hijacking and the use of airplanes to crash
into buildings and disrupt and wound urban and economic life. The
targets were partly symbolic, representing global capital and American
military power, and partly material, intending to disrupt the airline
industry, the businesses centered in downtown New York, and perhaps
the global economy itself through potentially dramatic downturns
of the world’s largest stock market and primary financial
center. Indeed, as a response to the drama of the terror spectacle,
an unparalleled shutdown occurred in New York, Washington, and
other major cities throughout the U.S., with government and businesses
closing up for the day and the airline system canceling all flights.
Wall Street and the stock market were shut down for days, baseball
and entertainment events were postponed, Disneyland and Disneyworld
were closed, McDonald’s locked up its regional offices, and
most major U.S. cities became eerily quiet.
Post 9/11 Media Spectacle
The 9/11 terror spectacle unfolded in a city that was one of the
most media-saturated in the world and that played out a deadly
drama live on television. The images of the planes hitting the
World Trade Center towers and their collapse were played repeatedly,
as if repetition were necessary to master a highly traumatic event.
The spectacle conveyed the message that the U.S. was vulnerable
to terror attack, that terrorists could create great harm, and
that anyone at anytime could be subject to a violent terror attack,
even in Fortress America. The suffering, fear, and death that many
people endure on a daily basis in violent and insecure situations
in other parts of the world, was brought home to U.S. citizens.
Suddenly, the vulnerability and anxiety suffered by many people
throughout the world was also deeply experienced by U.S. citizens,
in some cases for the first time. The terror attacks thus had material
effects, attempting to harm the U.S. and global economy, and psychic
effects, traumatizing a nation with fear. The spectacle of terror
was broadcast throughout the global village, with the whole world
watching the assault on the U.S. and New York’s attempts
to cope with the attacks.
The live television broadcasting brought a “you are there” drama
to the September 11 spectacle. The images of the planes striking
the World Trade Center, the buildings bursting into flames, individuals
jumping out of the window in a desperate attempt to survive the
inferno, and the collapse of the Towers and subsequent chaos provided
unforgettable images that viewers would not soon forget. The drama
continued throughout the day with survivors being pulled from the
rubble, and the poignant search for individuals still alive and
attempts to deal with the attack produced resonant iconic images
seared deeply into spectators’ memories. Many people who
witnessed the event suffered nightmares and psychological trauma.
For those who viewed it intensely, the spectacle provided a powerful
set of images that would continue to resonate for years to come,
much as the footage of the Kenneday assassination, iconic photographs
of Vietnam, the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger,
or the death of Princess Diana and young JFK Jr. in the 1990s provided
unforgettable imagery.
The September 11 terror attacks in New York were claimed to be “the
most documented event in history” in a May 2002 HBO film In
Memororium which itself provided a collage of images assembled
from professional news crews, documentary filmmakers, and amateur
videographers and photographers who in some cases risked their
lives to document the event. As with other major media spectacles,
the September 11 terror spectacle took over TV programming for
the next three days without commercial break as the major television
networks focused on the attack and its aftermath.
There followed a media spectacle of the highest order. For several
days, US television suspended broadcasting of advertising and TV
entertainment and focused solely on the momentous events of September
11. In the following analysis, I want to suggest how the images
and discourses of the US television networks framed the terrorist
attacks to whip up war hysteria, while failing to provide a coherent
account of what happened, why it happened, and what would count
as responsible responses. In an analysis of the dominant discourses,
frames, and representations that informed the media and public
debate in the days following the September 11 terrorist attacks,
I will show how the mainstream media in the United States privileged
the “clash of civilizations” model, established a binary
dualism between Islamic terrorism and civilization, and largely
circulated war fever and retaliatory feelings and discourses that
called for and supported a form of military intervention. I argue
that such one-dimensional militarism could arguably make the current
crisis worse, rather than providing solutions to the problem of
global terrorism. Thus, while the media in a democracy should critically
debate urgent questions facing the nation, in the terror crisis
the mainstream U.S. corporate media, especially television, promoted
war fever and military solutions to the problem of global terrorism.
On the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center
and Pentagon, the networks brought out an array of national security
state intellectuals, usually ranging from the right to the far
right, to explain the horrific events of September 11. The Fox
Network presented former UN Ambassador and Reagan Administration
apologist Jeane Kirkpatrick, who rolled out a simplified version
of Huntington’s clash of civilizations, arguing that we were
at war with Islam and should defend the West. Kirkpatrick was the
most discredited intellectual of her generation, legitimating Reagan
administration alliances with unsavory fascists and terrorists
as necessary to beat Soviet totalitarianism. Her 1980s propaganda
line was premised on a distinction between fascism and communist
totalitarianism which argued that alliances with authoritarian
or rightwing terrorist organizations or states were defensible
since these regimes were open to reform efforts or historically
undermined themselves and disappeared. Soviet totalitarianism,
by contrast, should be resolutely opposed since a communist regime
had never collapsed or been overthrown and communism was an intractable
and dangerous foe, which must be fought to the death with any means
necessary. Of course, the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s,
along with its Empire, and although Kirkpatrick was totally discredited
she was awarded a Professorship at Georgetown and allowed to continue
to circulate her crackpot views.
On the afternoon of September 11, Ariel Sharon, leader of Israel,
himself implicated in war crimes in Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon
in 1982, came on television to convey his regret, condolescences,
and assurance of Israel’s support in the war on terror. Sharon
called for a coalition against terrorist networks, which would
contrast the civilized world with terrorism, representing the Good
vs. Evil, “humanity” vs. “the blood-thirsty,” “the
free world” against “the forces of darkness,” who
are trying to destroy “freedom” and our “way
of life.”
Curiously, the Bush Administration would take up the same tropes
with Bush attacking the “evil” of the terrorists, using
the word five times in his first statement on the September 11
terror assaults, and repeatedly portraying the conflict as a war
between good and evil in which the U.S. was going to “eradicate
evil from the world,” “to smoke out and pursue… evil
doers, those barbaric people.” The semantically insensitive
and dyslexic Bush administration also used cowboy metaphors, calling
for bin Laden “dead or alive,” and described the campaign
as a “crusade,” until he was advised that this term
carried offensive historical baggage of earlier wars of Christians
and Moslems. And the Pentagon at first named the war against terror “Operation
Infinite Justice,” until they were advised that only God
could dispense “infinite justice,” and that Americans
and others might be troubled about a war expanding to infinity.
Disturbingly, in mentioning the goals of the war, Bush never mentioned “democracy,” and
the new name for the campaign became “Operation Enduring
Freedom.” The Bush Administration mantra became that the
war against terrorism is being fought for “freedom.” But
we know from the history of political theory and history itself
that freedom must be paired with equality, or concepts like justice,
rights, or democracy, to provide adequate political theory and
legitimation for political action. It is precisely the contempt
for democracy and self-autonomy that has characterized U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East for the past decades, which is a prime
reason why groups and individuals in the area passionately hate
the United States.
In his speech to Congress on September 20 declaring his war against
terrorism, Bush described the conflict as a war between freedom
and fear, between “those governed by fear” who “want
to destroy our wealth and freedoms,” and those on the side
of freedom. Yet “freedom” for Bush has usually signaled
the capacity to say and do anything he wanted to, in a life-time
of providing deregulation of the economy, favors to his corporate
supporters, and participation himself in dubious political and
economic activities. The “Bush doctrine” in foreign
policy has signified freedom for the U.S. to wage preemptive strikes
anywhere it wishes at any time, and the unilateralist Bush administration
foreign policy has signified freedom from major global treaties
ranging from Kyoto to every conceivable international effort to
regulate arms and military activity (see Kellner 2001 and 2003).
And while Bush ascribed “fear” to its symbolic other
and enemy, as Michael Moore’s film Bowling for Columbine demonstrates,
the corporate media have been exploiting fear for decades in their
excessive presentation of murder and violence and dramatization
of a wide range of threats from foreign enemies and within everyday
life. Clearly, the media whipped up hysteria in its post-9/11 coverage
of anthrax attacks and frequent reports of terrorist threats and
since September 11 the Bush administration has arguably used fear
tactics to advance its political agenda, including tax breaks for
the rich, curtailment of social programs, military build-up, the
most draconian assaults on U.S. rights and freedoms in the contemporary
era, and a March 2003 war on Iraq.
In his September 20 talk to Congress, Bush also drew a line between
those who supported terrorism and those who were ready to fight
it. Stating that “you’re either with us, or against
us,” Bush declared war on any states supporting terrorism
and laid down a series of non-negotiable demands to the Taliban
who ruled Afghanistan, while Congress wildly applauded. Bush’s
popularity soared with a country craving blood-revenge and the
head of Osama bin Laden. Moreover, Bush also asserted that his
administration held accountable those nations who supported terrorism –-
a position that could nurture and legitimate military interventions
for years to come.
Interestingly, Bush Administration discourses, like those of bin
Laden and radical Islamists, are fundamentally Manichean, positing
a binary opposition between Good and Evil, Us and Them, civilization
and barbarism. Bush’s Manichean dualism replicates as well
the Friend/Enemy opposition of Carl Schmidt upon which Nazi politics
were based. Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and The Terrorist provided
the face of an enemy to replace the “evil Empire” of
Soviet Communism which was the face of the Other in the Cold War.
The terrorist Other, however, does not reside in a specific country
with particular military targets and forces, but is part of an
invisible empire supported by a multiplicity of groups and states.
This amorphous terrorist Enemy, then, allows the crusader for Good
to attack any country or group that is supporting terrorism, thus
promoting a foundation for a new doctrine of preemptive strikes
and perennial war.
The discourse of Good and Evil can be appropriated by disparate
and opposing groups and generates a highly dichotomous opposition,
outside the discourses of democratic communication and consensus,
and provoking violent and military responses. It is assumed by
both sides that “we” are the good, and the “Other” is
wicked, an assertion that Bush made in his incessant assurance
that the “evil-doers” of the “evil deeds” will
be punished, and that the “Evil One,” will be brought
to justice, implicitly equating bin Laden with Satan himself.
Such hyperbolical rhetoric is a salient example of Bushspeak that
communicates through codes to specific audiences, in this case
domestic Christian rightwing groups that are Bush’s preferred
subjects of his discourse. But demonizing terms for bin Laden both
elevate his status in the Arab world as a superhero who stands
up to the West, and angers those who feel such discourse is insulting.
Moreover, the trouble with the discourse of “evil” is
that it is totalizing and absolutistic, allowing no ambiguities
or contradictions. It assumes a binary logic where “we” are
the forces of goodness and “they” are the forces of
darkness. The discourse of evil is also cosmological and apocalyptic,
evoking a catacymsic war with cosmic stakes. On this perspective,
Evil cannot be just attacked one piece at a time, through incremental
steps, but it must be totally defeated, eradicated from the earth
if Good is to reign. This discourse of evil raises the stakes and
violence of conflict and nurtures more apocalpytic and catastrophic
politics, fuelling future cycles of hatred, violence, and wars.
Furthermore, the Bushspeak dualisms between fear and freedom,
barbarism and civilization, and the like can hardly be sustained
in empirical and theoretical analysis of the contemporary moment.
In fact, there is much fear and poverty in “our” world
and wealth, and freedom and security in the Arab and Islamic worlds –-
at least for privileged elites. No doubt, freedom, fear, and wealth
are distributed in both worlds so to polarize these categories
and to make them the legitimating principles of war is highly irresponsible.
And associating oneself with “good,” while making one’s
enemy “evil,” is another exercise in binary reductionism
and projection of all traits of aggression and wickedness onto
the “other” while constituting oneself as good and
pure.
It is, of course, theocratic Islamic fundamentalists who themselves
engage in similar simplistic binary discourse which they use to
legitimate acts of terrorism. For certain manichean Islamic fundamentalists,
the U.S. is evil, the source of all the world’s problems
and deserves to be destroyed. Such one-dimensional thought does
not distinguish between U.S. policies, people, or institutions,
while advocating a Jihad, or holy war against the American evil.
The terrorist crimes of September 11 appeared to be part of this
Jihad and the monstrousness of the actions of killing innocent
civilians shows the horrific consequences of totally dehumanizing
an “enemy” deemed so evil that even innocent members
of the group in question deserve to be exterminated.
Many commentators on U.S. television offered similarly one-sided
and Manichean accounts of the cause of the September 11 events,
blaming their favorite opponents in the current U.S. political
spectrum as the source of the terror assaults. For fundamentalist
Christian ideologue Jerry Falwell, and with the verbal agreement
of Christian Broadcast Network President Pat Robertson, the culpability
for this "horror beyond words" fell on liberals, feminists,
gays and the ACLU. Jerry Falwell said and Pat Robertson agreed: "The
abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God
will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent
babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and
the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians
who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle,
the ACLU, People for the American Way--all of them who have tried
to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say,
'You helped this happen.'" In fact, this argument is similar
to a rightwing Islamic claim that the U.S. is fundamentally corrupt
and evil and thus deserves God’s wrath, an argument made
by Falwell critics that forced the fundamentalist fanatic to apologize.
For rightwingers, like Gary Aldrich the “President and Founder" of
the Patrick Henry Center, it was the liberals who were at fault: "Excuse
me if I absent myself from the national political group-hug that's
going on. You see, I believe the Liberals are largely responsible
for much of what happened Tuesday, and may God forgive them. These
people exist in a world that lies beyond the normal standards of
decency and civility.” Other rightists, like Rush Limbaugh,
argued incessantly that it was all Bill Clinton’s fault,
and Election-thief manager James Baker (see Kellner 2001) blamed
the catastrophe on the 1976 Church report that put limits on the
CIA.
On the issue of “what to do,” rightwing columnist
Ann Coulter declaimed: "We know who the homicidal maniacs
are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should
invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity."
While Bush was declaring a “crusade” against terrorism
and the Pentagon was organizing “Operation Infinite Justice,” Bush
Administration Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the
administration's retaliation would be "sustained and broad
and effective" and that the United States "will use all
our resources. It's not just simply a matter of capturing people
and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing
the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism."
Such all-out war hysteria was the order of the day, and throughout
September 11 and its aftermath ideological warhorses like William
Bennett came out and urged that the U.S. declare war on Iraq, Iran,
Syria, Libya, and whoever else harbored terrorists. On the Canadian
Broadcasting Network, former Reagan administration, Deputy Secretary
of Defense and military commentator Frank Gaffney suggested that
the U.S. needed to go after the sponsors of these states as well,
such as China and Russia, to the astonishment and derision of the
Canadian audience. And rightwing talk radio and the Internet buzzed
with talk of dropping nuclear bombs on Afghanistan, exterminating
all Moslems, and whatever other fantasy popped into their unhinged
heads.
Hence, broadcast television allowed dangerous and arguably deranged
zealots to vent and circulate the most aggressive, fanatic, and
downright lunatic views, creating a consensus around the need for
immediate military action and all-out war. The television networks
themselves featured logos such as “War on America,” “America’s
New War,” and other inflammatory slogans that assumed that
the U.S. was at war and that only a military response was appropriate.
I saw few cooler heads on any of the major television networks
that repeatedly beat the war drums day after day, without even
the relief of commercials for three days straight, driving the
country into hysteria and making it certain that there would be
a military response and war.
Radio was even more frightening. Not surprisingly, talk radio
oozed hatred and hysteria, calling for violence against Arabs and
Muslims, demanding nuclear retaliation, and global war. As the
days went by, even mainstream radio news became hyperdramatic,
replete with music, patriotic gore, and wall-to-wall terror hysteria
and war propaganda. National Public Radio, Pacifica, and some discussion
programs attempted rational discussion and debate, but on the whole
radio was all propaganda, all the time.
There is no question concerning the depth of emotion and horror
with which the nation experienced the first serious assault on
U.S. territory by its enemies. The constant invocation of analogies
to “Pearl Harbor” inevitably elicited a need to strike
back and prepare for war. The attack on the World Trade Center
and New York City evoked images of assault on the very body of
the country, while the attack on the Pentagon represented an assault
on the country’s defense system, showing the vulnerability,
previously unperceived, of the U.S. to external attack and terror.
For some years, an increasing amount of “expert consultants” were
hired by the television corporations to explain complex events
to the public. The military consultants hired by the networks had
close connections to the Pentagon and usually would express the
Pentagon point of view and spin of the day, making them more propaganda
conduits for the military than independent analysts. Commentators
and Congressman, like John McCain (R-Arz.), Henry Kissinger, James
Baker, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and other long-time advocates of the
military-industrial complex, described the attacks as an “act
of war” immediately on September 11 and the days following.
For hawkish punits, the terror attacks required an immediate military
response and dramatic expansion of the U.S. military. Many of these
hawks were former government officials, like Kissinger and Baker,
who were currently tied into the defense industries, guaranteeing
that their punditry would be paid for by large profits of the defense
industries that they were part of. Indeed, the Bush family, James
Baker and other advocates of large-scale military retribution were
connected with the Carlyle Fund, the largest investor in military
industries in the world. Consequently, these advocates of war would
profit immensely from sustained military activity, an embarrassment
rarely mentioned on television or the mainstream press, but that
was widely discussed in alternative media and the Internet.
The network anchors as well framed the event as a military attack,
with Peter Jennings of ABC stating “the response is going
to have to be massive if it is to be effective.” NBC, owned
by General Electric the largest U.S. military corporation, as usual
promoted military action and its talk shows were populated by pundits
who invariably urged immediate military retribution. To help generate
and sustain widespread public desire for military intervention,
the networks played show after show detailing the harm done to
victims of the bombing, kept their cameras aimed at “Ground
Zero” to document the damage and destruction and drama of
discovery of dead bodies, and constructed report after report on
the evil of bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorists who had committed
the atrocities.
To continue the sense of drama and urgency, and to ensure that
viewers kept tuned into the story and their channels, the television
cable news networks all added “Crawlers” to the bottom
of their screens, endlessly repeating bulletins of the latest news
highlighting the terrorist attack and its consequences. It was
remarkable, in fact, how quickly the media corporations produced
frames for the event, constructed it as it was going on, and provided
innovative and striking visuals and graphics to capture viewer
attention. Already on September 11, CNN constructed a four-tier
graphic presentation with a capitalized and blazing BREAKING NEWS
title on the top of their screen, followed by a graphic describing
the ATTACK ON AMERICA, or whatever slogan was being used to construct
the event. Next, a title described what was being currently portrayed
in the visuals flashed across the screen, with the crawlers scrolling
the headlines on the bottom. In a remarkable presentation of the
talk of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on September 11, for
instance, the visuals were split between Sharon’s picture
in Tel Aviv, images of the World Trade Center bomb site, and the
graphics summarizing Sharon’s talk and the headlines crawling
along the bottom of the screen. While the Bush administration obviously
had no idea what was happening to the U.S. as Bush’s plane
presidential plane frantically flew around the country and Vice-President
Dick Cheney was carried off to the mountains to hide, the TV networks
were fully in control with frames, discourses, and explanations
of the momentous events. It was a tremendous formal accomplishment
for the high-tech flash visual production capabilities of the networks,
although one could question the intelligence of the interpretations,
or the military retribution being fervently espoused without contradiction.
The U.S. corporate media continued to fan the war fever and there
was an orgy of patriotism such as the country had not seen since
World War II. Media frames shifted from “America Under Attack” to “America
Strikes Back” and “America’s New War” –-
even before any military action was undertaken, as if the media
frames were to conjure the military response that eventually followed.
As indicated, during the initial day of attack on September 11
and for the next few weeks, the networks continued to beat the
war drums and the mouthpieces of the military-industrial complex
continued to shout for military action with little serious reflection
on its consequences visible on the television networks. There was,
by contrast, much intelligent discussion on the Internet, showing
the dangers of the take-over of broadcasting by corporations who
would profit by war and upheaval.
War itself has become a media spectacle in which subsequent U.S.
regimes have used military spectacle to promote their agendas.
The Reagan administration repeatedly used military spectacle to
deflect attention from its foreign policy and economic problems
and two Bush administrations and the Clinton administration famously “wagged
the dog,” using military spectacle to deflect attention from
embarrassing domestic or foreign policy blunders, or in Clinton’s
case, a sex scandal that threatened him with impeachment (Kellner
2003).
The Gulf War of 1990-1991 was the major media spectacle of its
era, captivating global audiences, and seeming to save the first
Bush presidency, before the war’s ambiguous outcome and a
declining economy helped defeat the Bush presidential campaign
of 1992. In the summer of 1990, Bush I’s popularity was declining,
he had promised “no new taxes” and then raised taxes,
and it appeared that he would not be re-elected. Bush senior’s
salvation seemed to appear in the figure of Saddam Hussein. Bush
and the Reagan administration had supported Hussein during the
Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and Bush I continued to provide loans
and programs that enabled Hussein to build up his military during
his presidency (Kellner 1992).
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Bush mobilized an international
coalition to wage war to oust the Iraqis from its neighboring oil
emirate, demonizing Hussein as “another Hitler” and
major threat to world peace and the global economy. Bush refused
serious diplomatic efforts to induce Iraq to leave Kuwait, constantly
insulting the Iraqi leader rather than pursuing diplomatic mediation.
Instead, Bush appeared to want a war to increase U.S. power in
the region, to promote U.S. military power as the dominant global
police force, to save his own failing political fortunes, and to
exert more U.S. influence over oil supplies and policies (Kellner
1992). The televised drama of the 1991 Gulf War provided exciting
media spectacles that engrossed a global audience and that seemed
to ensure Bush’s re-election (he enjoyed 90% popularity at
the end of the war).
After the war, in an exuberant rush of enthusiasm, Bush I and
his national security advisor Brent Scowcroft proclaimed a “New
World Order” in which U.S. military power would be used to
settle conflicts, solve problems, and assert the U.S. as the hegemonic
force in the world. Such a dream was not (yet) to be, however,
as the Gulf War peace negotiations allowed Saddam Hussein to keep
power and the U.S. failed to aide Shiite forces in the south and
Kurds in the north of Iraq to overthrow Hussein. Images of the
slaughter of Kurds and Shiites throughout the global media provided
negative images that helped code the 1991 Gulf War as a failure,
or extremely limited success. Hence, the negative spectacle of
a messy endgame to the war combined with a poor economy helped
defeat Bush I in 1992.
At the time of the September 11 terror attacks, Bush Junior faced
the same failing prospects that his father confronted in the summer
of 1990. The economy was suffering one of the worst declines in
U.S. history, and after ramming through a rightwing agenda on behalf
of the corporations that had supported his 2000 election (Kellner
2001), Bush lost control of the political agenda when a republican
senator, James Jeffords, defected to the Democrats in May 2001.
But the September 11 terror attacks provided an opportunity for
Bush to re-seize political initiative and to boost his popularity.
The brief war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan
from early October through December 2001 appeared to be a military
victory for the U.S. After a month of stalemate following relentless
U.S. bombing, the Taliban collapsed in the north of the country,
abandoned the capital Kabul, and surrendered in its southern strongholds
(Kellner 2003. Yet the Afghanistan Terror War, like Bush Daddy’s
Gulf War, was ambiguous in its outcome. Although the Taliban regime
which hosted Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda collapsed under U.S.
military pressure, the top leaders and many militants of Al Qaeda
and the Taliban escaped and the country remains dangerous and chaotic.
Violent war lords that the U.S. used to fight Al Qaeda exert oppressive
power and generate hostile conditions, while sympathizers for Al
Qaeda and the Taliban continue to wield power and destabilize the
country. Because the U.S. did not use ground troops or multilateral
military forces, the top leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda escaped,
Pakistan was allowed to send in planes that took out hundreds of
Pakistanis and numerous top Al Qaeda militants, and Afghanistan
remains a threatening and unruly territory (Kellner, 2003).
While the 1991 Gulf War produced spectacles of precision-bombs
and missiles destroying Iraqi targets and the brief spectacle of
the flight of the Iraqis from Kuwait and the liberation of Kuwait
City, the Afghanistan war was more ambiguous and hidden in its
unfolding and effects. Many of the images of Afghanistan that circulated
through the global media were of civilian casualties caused by
U.S. bombing and daily pictures of thousands of refugees from war
and suffering of the Afghanistan people raised questions concerning
the U.S. strategy and intervention. Moreover, just as the survival
of Saddam Hussein ultimately coded Gulf War I as problematic, so
do did the continued existence of Osama bin Laden and his top Al
Qaeda leadership point to limitations of Bush Junior’s leadership
and policies.
Thus, by early 2002, George W. Bush faced a situation similar
to that of his father after the Gulf War. Despite victory against
the Taliban, the limited success of the war and a failing economy
provided a situation that threatened W’s re-election. Thus
Bush Junior needed a dramatic media spectacle that would guarantee
his election and once more Saddam Hussein provided a viable candidate.
Consequently, in his January 20, 2002 State of the Union address,
Bush made threatening remarks about an “axis of evil” confronting
the U.S., including Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
As 2002 unfolded, the Bush administration intensified its ideological
war against Iraq, advanced its doctrine of preemptive strikes,
and provided military build-up for what now looks like inevitable
war against Iraq. While the explicit war aims were to shut down
Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” and thus
enforce UN resolutions which mandated that Iraq eliminate its offensive
weapons, there were many hidden agendas in the Bush administration
offensive against Iraq. To be re-elected Bush obviously needed
a major victory and symbolic triumph over terrorism and required
deflection from the failings of his regime both domestically and
in the realm of foreign policy. Indeed, in the global arena, Bush
appears to be the most hated U.S. president of modern times and
anti-Americanism is on the rise throughout the world. Moreover,
ideologues within the Bush administration want to legitimate a
policy of preemptive strikes and a successful attack on Iraq could
inaugurate and normalize this policy. Some of the same militarist
unilateralists in the Bush administration envisage U.S. world hegemony,
Bush Daddy’s “New World Order,” with the U.S.
as the reigning military power and world’s policeman (Kellner,
2003). Increased control of the world’s oil supplies provides
a tempting prize for the former oil executives who maintain key
roles in the Bush administration. And, finally, one might note
the Oedipus Tex drama, where Bush Junior’s desires to conclude
his father’s unfinished business and simultaneously defeat
Evil to constitute himself as Good is driving him to war with the
fervor of a religious Crusade.
Bush's March 6, 2003 press conference made it evident that he
was ready to go to war against Iraq. His handlers told him to speak
slowly and keep his big stick and Texas macho out of view, but
he constantly threatened Iraq and evoked the rhetoric of good and
evil that he used to justify his crusade against bin Laden and
Al Qaeda. Bush repeated the words "Saddam Hussein" and "terrorism" incessantly,
mentioning Iraq as a “threat” at least sixteen times,
which he attempted to link with the September 11 attacks and terrorism.
He used the word "I" as in "I believe" countless
times, and talked of "my government" as if he owned it,
depicting a man lost in words and self-importance, positioning
himself against the evil that he was preparing to wage war against.
Unable to make an intelligent and objective case for a war against
Iraq, Bush could only invoke fear and a moralistic rhetoric.
Bush’s rhetoric, like that of fascism, deploys a mistrust
and hatred of language, reducing it to manipulative speechifying,
speaking in codes, repeating the same phrases over and over. This
is grounded in anti-intellectualism and hatred of democracy and
intellectuals. It is clearly evident in Bush’s press conferences
and snitty responses to questions and general contempt for the
whole procedure. It plays to anti-intellectual proclivities and
tendencies in the extreme conservative and fundamentalist Christian
constituencies who support him. It appears that Bush’s press
conference was to shore up his base, to communicate with it in
code, to pull it together for the long struggle where they could
be isolated and embattled but eventually triumphant. He displayed,
against his will, the complete poverty of his case to go to war
against Iraq, he had no convincing arguments, nothing new to communicate
and just repeated the same tired cliches over and over.
Bush’s discourse also displayed Orwellian features of Doublespeak
where war against Iraq is for peace, the occupation of Iraq is
its liberation, destroying its food and water supplies enables
humanitarian action, and where the murder of countless Iraqis and
destruction of much of the country is for their benefit. In a prewar
summit with Tony Blair in the Azores and in his first talk after
the bombing began Bush went on and on about the “coalition
of the winning” and how many countries were supporting and
participating in the “allied” effort. In fact, however,
it was a Coalition of Two, with the U.S. and UK doing most of the
fighting and with many of the countries that Bush claimed supported
his war quickly backtracking and expressing reservations about
the highly unpopular assault that was strongly opposed by most
people and countries in the world.
On March 19, the media spectacle of the war against Iraq unfolded
with a dramatic attempt to “decapitate” the Iraqi regime.
Large numbers of missiles were aimed at targets in Baghdad where
Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership were believed to be staying
and the tens of thousands of ground troops on the Kuwait-Iraq border
poised for invasion entered Iraq in a blitzkrieg toward Baghdad.
The media followed the Bush administration and Pentagon slogan
of “shock and awe” and presented the war against Iraq
as a great military spectacle, as triumphalism marked the opening
days of the U.S. bombing of Iraq and invasion.
The Al Jazeera network live coverage of the bombing of a palace
belonging to the Hussein family was indeed shocking as loud explosions
and blasts jolted viewers throughout the world. Whereas some Western
audiences experienced this bombing positively as a powerful assault
on evil, for Arab audiences it was experienced as an attack on
the body of the Arab and Muslim people, just as the September 11
terror attacks were experienced by Americans as assaults on the
very body and symbols of the United States. While during Gulf War
I, CNN was the only network live in Baghdad, and then throughout
the war framed the images, discourses, and spectacle, there were
over twenty networks in Baghdad this time, including several Arab
networks, and the different broadcasting companies presented the
war quite diversely.
Al Jazeera and other Arab networks, as well as some European networks,
talked of an “invasion” and an illegal U.S. and British
assault on Iraq. While U.S. TV networks presented a “War
in Iraq” or “Operation Iraqi Freedom” as the
framing concepts, Arab networks presented the “War on Iraq.” While
Donald Rumsfeld bragged that the bombings were the most precise
in history and were aimed at military and not civilian targets,
Arab and European networks focused on civilian casualties and presented
painful spectacles of Iraqis suffering. Moreover, to everyone’s
surprise after a triumphant march across the Kuwaiti border and
rush to Baghdad, the U.S. and British forces began to take casualties,
and during the weekend of March 22-23, images of their P.O.W.s
and dead bodies of their soldiers were shown throughout the world.
Moreover, the Iraqis began fiercely resisting and rather than cheering
for British and U.S. forces to enter the southern city of Basra,
there was fierce resistance throughout southern Iraq.
Soon after, an immense sandstorm slowed down the march on Baghdad
and images of Iraqi civilians maimed or killed by U.S. and British
bombing and accounts of mishaps, stalled and overextended supply
lines, and unexpected dangers to the invading forces created a
tremendously dramatic story. The drama of the spectacle was multiplied
by “embedded reporters” who were occupying the U.S.
and British forces and who beamed back live pictures, first of
the triumphant blitzkrieg through Iraq and then of the invading
forces stalling and subject to perilous counterattack.
A great debate emerged around the embedded reporters and whether
journalists who depended on the protection of the U.S. and British
military, lived with the troops, and signed papers agreeing to
a rigorous set of restrictions on their reporting could be objective.
From the beginning, it was clear that the embedded reporters were
indeed “in bed with” with military escorts and protectors
and as the U.S. and Britain stormed into Iraq the reporters presented
exultant and triumphant accounts that trumped any paid propagandist.
The embedded U.S. network television reporters were gung ho cheerleaders
and spinners for the U.S. military and lost all veneer of objectivity.
But as the blitzkrieg stalled, a sandstorm hit, and U.S. and British
forces came under attack, the embedded reporters reflected genuine
fear, helped capture the chaos of war, provided often vivid account
of the fighting, and in one case deflated a propaganda lie of the
U.S. military.
Indeed, U.S. and British military discourse was exceptionally
mendacious, as happens so often in wars that are as much for public
opinion as for military goals. British and U.S. sources claimed
the first days into Iraq that the border port of Umm Qasar and
major southern city of Basra were under coalition control, whereas
TV images showed quite the opposite. When things went very bad
for U.S. and British forces on March 23, a story originated from
an embedded reporter with the Jerusalem Post that a “huge” chemical
weapons production facility was found, a story allegedly confirmed
by a Pentagon source to the Fox TV military correspondent who quickly
spread it through the U.S. media (BBC was skeptical from the beginning).
When U.S. officials denied that they were responsible for major
civilian atrocities in two Baghdad bombings the week of March 24,
reporters on the scene described witnesses to planes flying overhead
and in one case found pieces of a missile with U.S. markings and
numbers on it.
After a suicide bombing killed four U.S. troops at a checkpoint
in late March, U.S. soldiers fired on a vehicle that ran a checkpoint
and killed seven civilians. The U.S. military claimed that it had
fired a warning shot, but a Washington Post reporter on
the scene reported that a senior U.S. military official had shouted
to a younger soldier to fire a warning shot first and then yelled
that “you f***ing killed them” when he failed to do
so. Embedded newspaper reporters also often provided more vivid
accounts of “friendly fire” and other mishaps, getting
their information from troops on the ground and on the site, instead
of from military spinners who tended to be propagandists.
Hence, the embedded reporters provided documentation of the more
raw and brutal aspects of war and telling accounts that often put
in question official versions of the events, as well as propaganda
and military spin. But since their every posting and broadcast
was censored by the U.S. military it was the unilateralist journalists
who provided the most accurate account of the horrors of the war
and the Coalition of Two military mishaps. Thus, on the whole the
embedded journalists were largely propagandists who often outdid
the Pentagon and Bush administration in spinning the message of
the moment.
Moreover, the U.S. broadcast networks, on the whole, tended to
be more embedded in the Pentagon and Bush administration than the
reporters in the field. The military commentators on all networks
provided nothing more than the Pentagon spin of the moment and
often repeated gross lies and propaganda, as in the example I mentioned
above concerning the checkpoint shooting of civilians. Entire networks
like Fox and the NBC cable networks provided little but propaganda
and one-sided patriotism, as did, for the most part CNN. All these
24/7 cable networks, as well as the big three U.S. broadcasting
networks, tended to provide highly sanitized views of the war,
rarely showing Iraqi casualties, thus producing a view of the war
totally different than that shown in other parts of the world.
The Fox network was especially gung ho, militarist and aggressive,
yet Fox footage shown on April 5-6 of the daring U.S. incursion
into Baghdad showed a road strewn with destroyed Iraqi vehicles,
burning buildings, and Iraqi corpses. This live footage, replayed
for days, caught something of the carnage of the high-tech slaughter
and destruction of Iraq that the U.S. networks tended to neglect.
And an Oliver North commentary to footage of a U.S. warplane blasting
away one Iraqi tank and armored vehicle after another put on display
the high-tech massacre of a completely asymmetrical war in which
the Iraqi military had no chance whatsoever against the U.S. war
machine.
An April 6 interview on Fox with Forbes magzzine publisher
and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes made it clear that
the U.S. intended to get all the contracts on rebuilding Iraq for
American firms, that Iraqi debts should be cancelled held by French
and Russians, and that to the victors go all the spoils of war.
Such discourse put on display the arrogance and greed that drove
the U.S. effort and subverted all idealistic rhetoric about democracy
and freedom for the Iraqis. The very brutality of Fox war pornography
graphically displayed the horrors of war and the militarist, gloating,
and barbaric discourse that accompanied the slaughter of Iraqis
and destruction of the country showed the New Barbarism that characterized
the Bush era.
Comparing American broadcasting networks with the BBC, Canadian,
and other outlets as I did during the opening weeks of the U.S.
war against Iraq showed two different wars being presented. The
U.S. networks tended to ignore Iraqi casualties, Arab outrage about
the war, global antiwar and anti-U.S. protests, and the negative
features of the war, while the BBC and Canadian CBC often featured
these negative features. As noted, the war was framed very differently
by different countries and analysts noted that in Arab countries
the war was presented as an invasion of Iraq, slaughter of its
peoples, and destruction of the country.
In a sense, the U.S. and UK war on Iraq found itself in a double
bind. The more thoroughly they annihilated Iraqi troops and conquered
the country, the more aggressive, bullying, and imperialist they
would appear to the rest of the world. Yet the high rate of civilian
casualties and harrowing images of U.S. bombing and destruction
of Iraq made it imperative to end the war as soon as possible.
An apparently failed attempt to kill Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi
leadership on April 7th, which
destroyed a civilian area and milled a number of people, followed
by the killing of journalists in two separate episodes by the U.S.
military on April 8, produced an extremely negative media spectacle
of the war on Iraq, but the apparent collapse of the Iraqi regime
on April 9, where for the first time there were significant images
of Iraqis celebrating the demise of Hussein, provided the possibility
of the spectacle of victory. The situation remained uncertain,
however, and events could intervene that produced highly negative
spectacles and the longterm effects and blowback of a U.S. and
UK occupation of Iraq could also produce highly negative media
spectacles.
Obviously, multifaceted global events like the two Bush administration
wars against Iraq are highly complex and have a wealth of underlying
factors. Thus it would be a mistake to suggest that one single
factor like control of oil or domestic political goals were the
key factor in either of the two wars against Iraq carried out by
Bush family administrations. Complex historical events are overdetermined
and require multicausal analysis (Kellner 1992 and 2003).
Yet in a highly-saturated media environment, successful political
projects require carefully planned and executed media spectacles.
In this study, I have suggested that both the September 11 terror
attacks and Bush family’s wars against Iraq were prime examples
of such spectacles. Both Al Qaeda terrorists and two Bush administrations
have used media spectacle to promote their agendas and during an
era of Terror War politics are mediated more than ever through
spectacular media events and the production of spectacle.
In the U.S. and much of the Western world, the corporate media
have followed the Bush administration in demonizing bin Laden,
Saddam Hussein, and terrorism, while celebrating U.S. military
interventions. A critical cultural studies, however, should dissect
dominant discourses, images, and spectacles of all contending sides,
denoting manipulation, propaganda, and questionable policies. I
have suggested that multilateralism is the appropriate global response
to problems like terrorism and regimes like Iraq, and that global
institutions and not unilateralism U.S. military intervention should
deal with such problems.
In conclusion, I would like to argue that in a world when ever
fewer media corporations control the broadcasting and print media
that the Internet provides the best source of alternative information,
a wealth of opinion and debate, and a variety of sites that provides
the material for more accurate information and organization of
political alternatives to the current regime in the U.S. (Kellner
2002 and 2003). Although there is a frightening amount of misinformation
and reactionary discourse on the Internet, there is the potential
to become literate and informed on a variety of important topics.
Indeed, the Internet has played a key role in nurturing the anti-globalization
and global justice movements, and is playing an important role
in facilitating development of a global anti-war movement.
Further, the global peace movement that has been constituting
itself as a counterspectacle to Islamic terrorism and Bush militarism
signals a democratic alternative to war. The spectacle of millions
demonstrating against an attack on Iraq in 2003, activists going
to Iraq to serve as human shields against U.S. and British bombing,
and the daily protests throughout everyday life present opposition
to war and struggles for peace and democracy. On the even of Bush
Junior’s assault on Iraq, a virtual protest sent millions
of e-mail and telephone calls to Washington to protest an impending
Iraq attack and the beginnings of a global peace movement numbering
million was evident. Bush administration Terror War policy envisages
an era of wars against terrorism and countries that support terror,
a situation in which media spectacle will be used to promote policies
of aggression. One hopes that spectacles of peace and opposition
to war will grow in force to prevent the unleashing of military
spectacle that portends historical regression on a frightening
scale and that threatens the survival of the human race.
Kellner, Douglas (1992) The Persian Gulf TV War. Boulder,
Co.: Westview Press.
Grand Theft 2000. Boulder, Co.: Rowman and Littlefield.
Media Spectacle. London and<
New York: Routledge.
From 9/11 to Terror War: Dangers of the Bush Legacy. Boulder,
Co.: Rowman and Littlefield.
Notes
[1] This study draws upon my books The Persian Gulf TV War (Kellner
1992); Grand Theft 2000 (Kellner 2001) Media Spectacle (Kellner
2003); and From 9/11 to Terror War: Dangers of the Bush Legacy (Kellner
forthcoming).
[2] I attended a three-part symposium telecast live in the Beverly
Hills Museum of Radio and Television which included media executives
and broadcasters throughout the world who described how they processed
the events of September 11. Representatives from Canada, European
countries, China, and elsewhere described how they got footage
to broadcast, how the story dominated their respective media sources,
and how the story was truly global in reach. An archive is collecting
video and commentary on September 11 broadcasting throughout the
world
[3] In this section I am indebted to students of my UCLA Cultural
Studies seminar and to Richard Kahn who developed a Web-site where
the class posted material relating to the September 11 events and
Afghan war; the following study draws on this material that can
be found at:
[4] Shortly after this and other outbursts, the frothing Coulter
was fired from National Review when she reacted violently
to efforts to tone down her rhetoric by the editors, helping to
provide her with martyr status for the U.S. Talibanites. Later,
Coulter stated in a speech that American Taliban John Walker Lindh
should be executed so that liberals and the left can get the message
that they can be killed if they get out of line!!
[5] The Bush-Baker-Carlyle connection was documented in many English
newspapers, the New York Times, and other sources, collected on www.bushwatch.com and Phil Agre’s
Red Rock Eater list collected at http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html.
See also Melanie Warner, “The Big Guys Work for the Carlyle
Group,” Fortune (March 18, 2002).
[6] This situation calls attention once again to the major contradiction
of the present age in regard to information and knowledge. On one
hand, the U.S. has available the most striking array of information,
opinions, debate, and sources of knowledge of any society in history
with its profusion of print journalism, books, articles, and Internet
sources in contrast to the poverty of information and opinion on
television. This is truly a scandal and a contradiction in the
construction of contemporary consciousness and political culture.
Thus, while television functioned largely as propaganda, spectacle,
and the producer of mass hysteria, close to brain-washing, fortunately,
there is a wealth of informed analysis and interpretation available
in print media and on the Internet, as well as a respectable archive
of books and articles on the complexity of U.S. foreign policy
and Middle East history (see Kellner 2003).>
[7] For systematic analysis of the New Barbarism accompanying
and in part generated by the Bush administration and their hardright
supporters, see Kellner, 2003.
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