A different view
It has been clear to anyone who has followed the war through outside media sources, say in Britain, Australia or elsewhere, different perspectives is presented that contrast to the one that predominates in the US media. As noted below:
"It's quite clear that the electronic media in the U.S. is essentially behind the administration on the war, whether for ideological reasons or because it's good for ratings,"
It is also quite clear that the US media insists on depicting both Bush and his war as “popular” regardless of the actual poll numbers. It seems that throughout the US media “popularity” has been redefined as “slightly over half.”
Another curiosity to note: in an article devoted to the differences in war fighting and war coverage it is surprising that none of the considerable anger in Britain over friendly-fire incidents was even hinted at. Discussion of the different conduct of the war would seem to be a natural point of departure for exploring this issue and yet it is left unmentioned, as if it simply doesn’t exist.
So ironically even when the US media is telling us something of the differences in perceptions and reporting it continues to perpetuate the “not in front of the children” coverage that helps to keep Americans “bless their hearts… fairly parochial.”
Most Britons Back the War, but Mistrust How the U.S. Is Waging It
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, April 1 — Britons generally support the war in Iraq [curiously, unless “most” and “generally” really mean “slightly over half,” this assertion is contradicted later in the story], in that they want Saddam Hussein removed from power. But there is a deep unease here about the way the war is being waged, with what many regard as a bluster and swagger both dangerously inappropriate and all too American.
"The Americans should have gone in on their own," said Ted Ferard, 33, a landscape gardener on his way to an appointment in west London. He is embarrassed, he said, at seeing Prime Minister Tony Blair acting like "Bush's puppet," in thrall to an American president who seems not to understand the consequences of his country's military might.
Whether they admit it or not, Britons have always felt ambivalent about the awesome strength and unvarnished self-regard of the United States, their country's closest ally. The onset of the war may have helped mask that feeling, bringing a sense of shared purpose and, to some, a burst of patriotic pride, but it has by no means eliminated it.
In the last several days, even pro-war British newspapers have been full of articles setting out what commentators say are worrying distinctions between British and American approaches to the war.
Basing their accounts on interviews with British and American soldiers in the field, the papers have portrayed the Americans as Godzilla-like invaders, stumbling clumsily through foreign terrain, ill-prepared to the point of helplessness to reach out to the population they have pledged to liberate.
By contrast, the papers say, British troops — well versed in guerrilla warfare and in dealing with frightened, skeptical or hostile civilian populations after three decades of fighting in Northern Ireland and Kosovo, among other places — are far better at winning the confidence of Iraqis.
Many British soldiers see their job, it seems, as helping to heal the wounds inflicted by the Americans' heavy-handed assault. In The Financial Times, for instance, Lt. Col. Buster Howes, the commander of a Royal Marines commando unit in the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, was quoted as describing the Americans as "more standoffish" than the British and "very nervous about going in" because of their experience in Somalia in 1993, when 18 American soldiers were killed during a disastrous operation in Mogadishu.
His troops are being sent with relief supplies into the city's now quiet streets without flak jackets, wearing berets instead of helmets and accompanied by Arabic-speaking interpreters, in contrast to the Americans in their full combat gear and protective chemical warfare suits.
"British officers, who like to recall the lessons of the colonial era in countries such as Malaya and India, cannot hide their concern at the very different methods used by their American allies in dealing with civilians," wrote Victor Mallett, the author of The Financial Times article.
In The Scotsman, a British officer in Umm Qasr was described as alarmed when some American soldiers aggressively fired their rifles at a house as they passed by. "They said they had been sniped at from there a few days ago, so they like to give them a warning every now and then," the officer told the paper. "This is something we would never condone. You really aren't going to make any friends doing that."
The Scotsman article quoted Stuart Crawford, a retired lieutenant colonel in the British Army and now a military analyst, as saying that the Americans had "little history of dealing with civilian populations in the same way" as Britons. "At times," he told the paper, "American warfare can be characterized by an overwhelming arrogance."
The British have been inundated, as have Americans, with nonstop images of the war since the conflict began. In this media-saturated nation, with its 12 daily national newspapers, tradition of aggressive television reporting and full complement of cable and satellite channels, perceptions of the war can vary greatly, depending on where one turns for news.
The Sun, the populist Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, is a cheerleader for the war, emphasizing the heroism and humanity of "our boys" and denouncing any dissenting views as traitorous and unpatriotic. [Hmmm Murdoch owns Fox news as well… a coincidence?]
At the other extreme, The Independent, a left-leaning broadsheet, has been implacably antiwar. Its front pages tend to be compendiums of outraged articles about British deaths from American fire and the havoc wreaked by American bombs gone awry in Baghdad; the paper has printed articles in its news pages by, among others, a British "human shield" who was ejected from Baghdad along with his comrades, even after one volunteered to stay and fight on the side of the Iraqi Army.
All the coverage can indeed be overwhelming. Britons who support the government's war efforts say the real news is hard to tease out of the barrage of dizzying and contradictory snapshots. "I am a child of the Second World War, and we didn't have the chance to see all the detailed, horrible incidents that are an unfortunate part of any war," said Sylvia Moynihan, 68, who said she supports the war, up to a point.
Jeff Fanner, a window installer on the way to a job, said he feared that television coverage was beginning to subvert the war's progress. He woke up this morning, he said, to relentless — and to his mind counterproductive — reports of the women and children shot by panicked American forces at a military checkpoint near Karbala.
"It's nice to know what's going on, but it shouldn't be in your face like that, because it turns people against the war," Mr. Fanner, 41, said.
That is how many people who support the war feel about the BBC, Britain's state-financed television network. The BBC — as well as its independent competitor, ITN — has been accused of showing an antiwar bias by emphasizing military blunders, British deaths from American fire and unwarranted civilian casualties instead of the more palpably gung-ho pictures that can characterize American network coverage.
"If the BBC was renamed the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation, it could not bring more comfort to Saddam," The News of the World, a Murdoch-owned Sunday tabloid, said in an editorial.
Last week, John Reid, chairman of the Labor Party, complained to Andrew Marr, the BBC's political editor, that the network was too critical of the war, The Sunday Telegraph reported. For his part, Mr. Marr told the newspaper that the government was merely angry that it could not control the television coverage. "Ministers seem to think anyone taking a balanced view is a friend of Baghdad," he said.
Jon Snow, the anchor of the influential Channel 4 evening news, said that "partiality is in the eye of the beholder."
"It's quite clear that the electronic media in the U.S. is essentially behind the administration on the war, whether for ideological reasons or because it's good for ratings," Mr. Snow said in an interview. "But in all honesty, we don't have a position on the war. We don't have a point of view, but we do question everything we're told."
With the latest opinion polls showing support for the war at just over 50 percent, opposition to the war is still vigorous [how does this square with the headline?]. Last weekend, Robin Cook, a Labor member of Parliament who resigned as leader of the House of Commons in protest at the government's position, provoked anger when he wrote an op-ed article in The Sunday Mirror saying that he had had enough of "this bloody and unnecessary war."
Mr. Cook later clarified his remarks by saying that while "there can be no question at this stage of letting Saddam off the hook," the humanitarian consequences of the invasion already looked to be devastating. "We were promised that we would be greeted as liberators, and that's not happened yet," he said.
To many Britons steeped in their country's colonial history, which involved long periods of administration of as well as various disastrous incursions into the Middle East, it hardly seems surprising that the Iraqis are not thrilled by the American — and by extension the British — invasion.
"The Americans still have not gauged the amount of resentment toward them in the region," said Sigi Soucek, the director of a building company in London. At 62, Mr. Soucek has lived off and on in the Arab world and feels that Britain's colonial past has given them a superior understanding of the way the region works. Still, he said he wished they had never joined the conflict.
"It's all great and nice to go in and secure the airfields, but what about the 20 million people there?" he said.
Similarly, Bruce Coleman, a retired oil engineer who spent a large part of his career in the Middle East, said the Americans — and particularly President Bush — had failed to recognize the magnitude of their undertaking.
"I don't think Bush realizes the bottomless pit that these countries can be when it comes to aid and I don't think the Americans realize what Iraq is," said Mr. Coleman, 63. "It's just an enormous desert, and it's so poor. All you see when you go there is rust and sand and damaged buildings. Putting it right is going to cost billions."
He likes the Americans, Mr. Coleman said, and feels close to them by virtue of tradition and a long and fruitful friendship. But that does not mean he has much confidence in their current project.
"The Americans, bless their hearts, are fairly parochial," he said. "They don't know anything about these countries they're dealing with."
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