Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Public Affairs Problems When Only Defeat is Victory
There is an interesting article in the current Air and Space Power Journal on public affairs and information operations that includes the quote:
“…saying that public communication cannot succeed without credibility puts us up against the hard facts that our enemies have had good media success without being particularly truthful, and that modern media are often more concerned with framing ideological conflict than with judging which version of the truth is right.”
The article also claims that highlighting good news from military operations is not being partisan; it is simply “part of a strategy for mission success.” The problem with that logic is that there is an unfortunately large movement in America whose political goal is for the United States to be defeated militarily. To them, any effort on the part of the military to do their job well, any activity that brings "mission success", will necessarily be viewed as a partisan attempt to undermine their political goal of an embarrassing defeat and humiliating retreat from our present global “War on Terror” military operations. They resent all the partisan soldiers, sailors, and airmen who are trying so hard to win Bush’s war. Non-partisan troops would put in no more work or creativity into winning than, for example, civilian bureaucrats, apathetic union workers, or better yet, apathetic unionized bureaucrats; they would just put in their eight hours a day (minus breaks), do the minimum work they could get away with, and collect their paycheck. That’s non-partisan troops. What would the Western civilization hating “loyal opposition” really like to see American soldiers, sailors, and airmen do? Stop fighting America’s enemies, and start murdering Americans. But only the bourgeois, I’m sure.
“…saying that public communication cannot succeed without credibility puts us up against the hard facts that our enemies have had good media success without being particularly truthful, and that modern media are often more concerned with framing ideological conflict than with judging which version of the truth is right.”
The article also claims that highlighting good news from military operations is not being partisan; it is simply “part of a strategy for mission success.” The problem with that logic is that there is an unfortunately large movement in America whose political goal is for the United States to be defeated militarily. To them, any effort on the part of the military to do their job well, any activity that brings "mission success", will necessarily be viewed as a partisan attempt to undermine their political goal of an embarrassing defeat and humiliating retreat from our present global “War on Terror” military operations. They resent all the partisan soldiers, sailors, and airmen who are trying so hard to win Bush’s war. Non-partisan troops would put in no more work or creativity into winning than, for example, civilian bureaucrats, apathetic union workers, or better yet, apathetic unionized bureaucrats; they would just put in their eight hours a day (minus breaks), do the minimum work they could get away with, and collect their paycheck. That’s non-partisan troops. What would the Western civilization hating “loyal opposition” really like to see American soldiers, sailors, and airmen do? Stop fighting America’s enemies, and start murdering Americans. But only the bourgeois, I’m sure.
