Needling under the Sun: Listen to Iraqis

The drumbeats of war are not the only tones resonating in Iraq. President Bush’s rhetoric and the propagandist leaflets dropped from military planes like rice rations distributed to Third World countries are also sending messages to Iraqis literal messages. The messages on these leaflets and the messages resonating from Bush’s mouth are a form of psychological warfare attempting to influence Iraqi perception of this war. The government has admittedly practiced psychological warfare since World War I. However, psychological warfare is being consciously and carefully waged on only one front: the propaganda front. The leaflets dropped by military planes have a purpose. Their purpose is to introduce America as a liberator rather than an enemy and encourage Iraqis to surrender peacefully.

However, I question whether the Bush administration is carefully deciding how it will speak to Iraqis in the coming months. This speech will have just as much of a psychological influence as that attempted through the leaflets. This speech could either ruin or realize the United States’ intent of establishing a happy alliance between a postwar government and the United States.

A happy alliance is crucial to the success of this entire U.S. campaign and raging global opinion of it after the war. The one crucial element Bush needs to factor into his rhetoric to achieving a happy alliance is cultural sensitivity.

The American government has a history of basing its strategies on numbers. Economists have infiltrated the government to an overwhelming degree. They are behind the scenes cranking out numbers from their counting machines, weighing U.S. economic interests and heavily influencing foreign policy. Meanwhile, anthropologists and their understandings of cultural values and ideals are outside the country, embedded in other nations. We need people with a deeper understanding of foreign leaders’ ideals and people to advise our president on how to be respectful when he speaks. Famous historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said one of the reasons Lyndon Johnson failed to successfully negotiate a peace settlement in Vietnam was because of the American tendency to try to project its cultural values on other traditions. ‘By denying significance to irreconcilable moral and ideological issues in favor of calculations of bargaining and power, Americans overlooked the reality that the war in Vietnam was an ideological struggle.’

Being sensitive does not require the president to bake Putin an apple pie if he falls ill, but he should know what to say to leaders and people beyond merely conveying U.S. intentions. If someone told me they were freeing me when I didn’t necessarily feel imprisoned, I wouldn’t gloat I’d scratch my head. If members of my family were killed in the name of this foreign ideological cause, I’d be angry. However, if someone took the time to understand me and communicated with me in a respectful and obliging manner, I’d be more receptive to their ideas.

Former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev spoke at Harvard several months ago. He talked about how his characteristics influenced his foreign policy decisions and said how he was treated according to his standards influenced how agreeable he would be when negotiating with foreign leaders.

‘An important matter was the issue of dignity … I never agreed with someone who was willing to humiliate me … compromise should not include a loss of self esteem, a loss of dignity … I never tolerated loose and irresponsible attitudes,’ he said. This came from a man who co-negotiated the dissolution of the Soviet Union and launched a plan, still existent today, to transform Russia into a working pluralistic country. Being culturally sensitive does not entail learning tribal dances or new languages. It entails learning the weight a leader places on universal human values like pride, dignity, respect, honesty and class. If a leader like Gorbachev holds his dignity in high regard, making wisecracks about him to the media would not be so wise.

Let’s examine another example, North Korea. Bush’s labeling of North Korea as part of some imaginary ‘axis of evil’ was not just a provocative statement. His words formed a dagger that struck at the pride of a nation and the leaders who pride themselves on helping to run that nation. Now we all have to live with the fear of nuclear warfare.

I fear Bush is not going to learn enough about how Iraqis want to be treated by a new leader or about how a new Iraqi leader would want to be treated in his negotiations with the United States.

Will the United States assume a jingoistic attitude toward a new leader, since it has invested so many resources and men? Will the United States expect a new leader to cave to its suggestions? Will the United States choose a leader who will work well with American officials in constructing a new government in Iraq?

If the United States seeks to control the direction of Iraqi governance without regard to the cultural values of the Iraqi people, it will fail. If it views a postwar Iraq and bases its strategies for constructing of a government mainly on numbers, economic interests and global markets, it will fail.

Right now, we can only question what the Bush administration will say. But let’s hope that instead of working unduly hard to paint America in a pretty pink light, the United States will ask the newly liberated some questions, too.

[ Amy Horowitz, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. ]