One of the key rhetorical struggles surrounding the war in Iraq is war supporters’ efforts to define the enemy. Listen to any debate long enough — on the Hill, on TV, etc. — and you’ll soon hear a conservative suggest we’re “fighting al Qaeda” in Iraq. Pesky reality-based reports note that less than 10% of the violence in Iraq is caused by foreign al Qaeda fighters, but it’s an integral angle to the debate — if we’re fighting those who were responsible for 9/11 in Iraq, then we can’t withdraw.
With this in mind, Josh Marshall published an important email over the weekend.
It’s a curious thing that, over the past 10 – 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as “al-Qaida” fighters. When did that happen?
Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were “insurgents” or they were referred to as “Sunni” or “Shia’a” fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as “al-Qaida”.
Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda.
War supporters’ use of language has been masterful for quite some time, and they’ve put on a clinic on how to manipulate rhetoric to serve policy goals (“surge,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “cut and run,” “axis of evil”). But this effort to label every possible foe “al Qaeda” is even more nefarious than most. It certainly doesn’t help that the group “al Qaeda in Iraq” is only tangentially connected to the actual al Qaeda.
Even more importantly, the rhetorical strategy is paying off. Not only is the broader conservative machine — Republicans on the Hill, Fox News, Limbaugh, etc. — sticking to the talking points, but Glenn Greenwald explained that mainstream media outlets are buying into this.
Here is the first paragraph from today’s New York Times article on our latest offensive, based exclusively on the claims of our military commanders:
“The operational commander of troops battling to drive fighters with Al Qaeda from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Qaeda leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week. He compared their flight with the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004.”
The article then uses the term “Qaeda” an additional 19 times to describe the enemy we are fighting — “Qaeda leaders,” “Qaeda strongholds,” “Qaeda fighters,” “Qaeda groups,” the “Qaeda threat,” etc. What is our objective in Iraq? To “move into neighborhoods cleared of Qaeda fighters and hold them.”
In virtually every article from the Times now, anyone we fight is automatically designated “Al Qaeda.”
The Washington Post and CNN are falling into the same bad habits.
The irony is the president himself used to be vaguely reasonable about these designations. Not too terribly long ago, Bush described “the terrorists affiliated with or inspired by al Qaeda” — not even the network itself — as the “smallest” component of violence in Iraq.
And then, as the political winds shifted, so too did the president’s rhetoric. In May, Bush declared that al Qaeda is “public enemy No. 1 in Iraq.”
It’s the underpinning of practically every argument offered by war supporters. When they label critics’ withdrawal plans “defeat,” they’re talking about “losing” to al Qaeda. The conflict, as far as they’re concerned, is us vs. them. Americans against those responsible for 9/11. Forces of freedom vs. forces of terrorism.
I understand the appeal of such a dynamic — it would make the war in Iraq so much easier — but it’s simply, unquestionably wrong. Worse, it’s a shamelessly cynical ploy to rally public support under false pretenses. Americans don’t support U.S. staying in the middle of a civil war, but maybe, they think, Americans will support a war against al Qaeda.
It’s a transparent con job. Credible news outlets need to be cognizant of this and stop falling for the fraud.