The Butt-Stroke Mentality
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MJ: What are other ways to manipulate public opinion?
RS: Since I've been home, I still constantly monitor the news from Afghanistan and Iraq. Everyday I get the casualty lists. The thing that's startling is that they're masking the casualties, the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Iraq is bad enough, but Afghanistan — that was supposed to be the shining jewel of the war on terror. We went in kicked out the bad guys and set up a democracy and everything's gonna be fine now.
MJ: What? Masking the casualties? I've never heard this before.
RS: It's a public relations tactic. A news cycle lasts 48 to 72 hours. Say Johnny Smith from New Haven, Conn., is in Kunar Province where his American infantry battalion is operating. He's in a fight with local insurgents — not Osama bin Laden, maybe some foreign fighters, but mostly local. Johnny Smith dies in combat. Within 24 hours there's a news release that comes out of this island we call Kabul that says a coalition soldier was killed in Afghanistan today. We're not going to give out his name because we're going to say, "The next of kin have to be notified." We're not going to give out his nationality because we're all part of this quote "coalition."
But here's the sad fact: 99.99 % of coalition forces in Kunar are in fact American. So now in the news — NBC news, national news, wire services — the only thing that's released is that a "coalition" soldier was killed in Afghanistan today.
And 72 hours later when the DOD finally releases Private Johnny Smith's name, the New Haven Register and Channel 8 will pick up the memorial service and how sad Johnny's family is. But in San Francisco, they never hear about it. In Minnesota, they never hear about it. In Florida, they never hear about it. It's a very clever public affairs strategy. Now we have NATO in Afghanistan, so it's, "A NATO soldier died."
MJ: Don't you think they should withhold the name out of respect for the family?
RS: Something tells me that for an American soldier who gave his life on a hillside in Afghanistan, at the very least we can honor and respect the sacrifice that he made. Can't we at the very least in society honor his sacrifice and realize that's the price that we're paying for the war that we're waging? But instead he's a nameless coalition soldier? It's along the same lines as this idea that we can't take photographs of flag-draped caskets. It's the same concept. They don't want to show the price being paid. They don't want to show the caskets. They don't want to name these people. And America as a whole goes on shopping.
MJ: You've interviewed families of fallen soldiers for Stars and Stripes. What did they say?
RS: One comes to mind. The father said to me, "I don't need the government to protect me in this time of grieving." Because that's what they say: "It's a time of grieving for the family," so they don't want to show the caskets coming home. They're using the families as a scapegoat. His son was killed in Sadr City with the First Armored Division. He was killed… April 7, 2004. Do you remember when the woman snapped the photos in Kuwait and sent them to the Seattle paper?
MJ: Yeah.
RS: Well, he's pretty sure his son was in one of the caskets in the picture, because his death happened around that time. He said to me flat out, "I think it's an honor. I think we have to honor our young men and women." When you see these ceremonies, they are the most solemn of ceremonies. It's a funeral like you've never seen before. When you see combat soldiers raising one of their fallen, it's historic in proportion. But America never gets to fully understand the impact, or people would have to face the fact that we're in a war. And people don't do that. One of the things I hate to hear in the news is, "and in stocks today." Especially NPR, it always seems like they squish our guys just before the stock market.
April Rabkin is an Editorial Fellow at Mother Jones.
