Looking At the Iraq War Through A Chinese Lens Let Us Call A Tragedy A Tragedy
Looking At the Iraq War Through A Chinese Lens ---Let Us Call A Tragedy A Tragedy By Hongyi Yin Adjunct Research Fellow, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China The Americans do call a spade a spade, do they not? ... But they do not call this tragedy and many others a tragedy. ... , to say nothing of their masterminded news reporting, some of which they openly describe as “misinformation and disinformation”—legitimate tools in their historic war games—in their variant on Sun Tzu—Shock & Awe—Achieving Rapid Dominance (available online at the US DoD’s website). It is they who led the world towards the tiny utopia in front of the computer and TV, where young people dwell in the illusion that a bloody war such as the one in Iraq is no more than a video game, and that a massacre could be portrayed like a comic book and played on TV. ... Media & War: Partners Loath to Part Company The secret of successful warfare lies in its secrecy; the secret of successful journalism lies in its publicity. ... In this sense, war and mass media are anathema to each other and are opposites resembling fire and water. ... The curtain is drawn on the Iraq War. During the past 31 days, flying on the wings of mass media, the war created a global nightmare, with artillery shells that whistled overhead, desperate and helpless expressions on the faces of the victims, fallen and truncated buildings and walls, dead bodies in a bloody mess, and yes, with military experts offering around-the-clock commentaries and analyses. Rolling news reports from the front of war stream into living rooms across the globe via TV, newspapers and the Internet, pounding at what remains of people’s minds and senses. From the comfort and safety of Chinese homes, this faraway but nonetheless bloody war seemed as if it were a fashion show being presented downtown; the engaged armies appeared to them like two fish playing a chasing game in their crystal home on the windowsills, or Roman gladiators performing in the Colosseum. Many a phase of the war was completed under the gaze of everyone. ... This role of the media was played to the hilt during the Vietnam War. ... that led to the US debacle. ... of facts to propagate negative and pessimistic doctrines, that through their unqualified descriptions of young American casualties and of the atrocities committed to the Vietnamese people, forced American forces to hand over victory to the enemy. Thus, the Vietnam War is also called “the sitting room war?or “the TV war? Lessons from the Vietnam War caused the US to strictly screen and examine battlefield reporters during wars that followed.