Repeating Is Believing

Governments tend to have a natural predisposition to sustain views that are friendly to them. Some go a step further and actively craft stories to support their purported opinions. For instance, Pakistani Television has hired Mr. Ahmad Quraishi, who, according to his “think tank,” has experience in “Immaculate Deception Creations tailored to your senses.” His website runs conspiracy theories which suggest that the world is designing a campaign to unseat Musharraf and that the U.S. was behind Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Mr. Quraishi’s outrageous statements are not a new phenomenon: mouthpieces for collapsing dictators have frequently played their part in promoting propaganda and nonsense. Mohammad Saeed as-Sahaf (MSS), the Iraqi minister of (mis?)information, became famous for claiming in April of 2003 that coalition forces were “not even 100 miles from Baghdad. They are not anywhere; they are selling illusions to others.” Within two days, U.S. troops entered Baghdad.

Baghdad was lost, Saddam Hussein was hanged, but the words of MSS are still alive today on coffee mugs and T shirts. While MSS knew his carefully chosen words were untrue, he realized their impact on the people of Iraq. The only sources of information to the Iraqis were state-controlled, and conjuring up defeats of the coalition forces would raise the morale of Iraqi troops who would find renewed strength to fight after hearing of the defeats of their enemy. In addition, such propaganda—especially when repeated over and over again—may help to bandwagon others into joining a movement. Once a few groups fall prey to this misinformation and join a cause, their support becomes social evidence of the clamor. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—people becoming part of a cause supports the initial assertion of the movement which encourages more people to join in. Furthermore, people who join earlier are perceived as being on a higher moral ground than the ones joining later on. Therefore, early supporters tend to be rewarded higher than those who join later, increasing the incentive for people to join. So just by repeating something over and over again, momentum may be created. This, when employed with other propaganda techniques, can create a long lasting impact.

More often than not, propagandists also use card-sticking, a tactic that involves promoting an extreme position and discrediting counterarguments and opposing points of view. This may seem counter-intuitive: how can an argument be sustained if it takes an unrealistic stance? Yet it is this very extreme position that enables its survival and growth of public sentiment in support of it. Take the huge outcry about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and their “imminent threat” to the US and global peace. Months before the Iraqi invasion, American media went berserk over Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction and the need for a U.S. invasion to eliminate the world of this “mass murderer” who according President George Bush had “the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.” There were daily statements from the White House to prepare the American public for this war. To support the claim that Saddam Hussein had WMDs the Kurdish chemical weapons episode of 1988 was brought up again and again fifteen years later. Interestingly, the US blamed Iran for the gas in 1988 and never condemned Iraq until months before the invasion. Such old and isolated instances were revisited to exaggerate the threat while the past few relatively quiet years in Iraq were ignored completely.

In addition, links were made between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, leading to the unsubstantiated claim that Saddam Hussein was somewhat responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Anyone who spoke out against the claims of the White House was belittled and called irresponsible, unpatriotic and dangerous. Nowhere during the buildup to the war were counter arguments analyzed in public by the State Department. Did Saddam Hussein really have WMDs? Did he really pose a threat to the world and to the U.S.? Was invasion led by the U.S. the best alternative? What would be the exit strategy? These questions, which would seem normal to ask before going to war, were never considered because of the intense card-sticking employed.

Remnants of this card-sticking and name-calling are still visible. To date, the Central Intelligence Agency has found no WMDs or any evidence that Saddam was manufacturing them. In 2006, the U.S. Senate announced that Saddam had no links with al-Qaeda and actually viewed the terrorist organization as a threat to his regime. However, 41% of the American population still believes that Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly responsible for 9/11, and hence a threat to the US. While the war may have still been justified even without Saddam Hussein having links with al-Qaeda or possessing WMDs, this does not exonerate the State Department from the intense card-sticking which at times bordered close to lying.

Propagandists may be able to obtain some temporary gains. However all propagandists eventually face the same fate: zero credibility. I hope when the movement whose existence Quraishi denies removes the man he calls “no dictator” in Pakistan, Mr. Quraishi will not have “no job”.



Samad Khurram ’09 is a government concentrator in Winthrop House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.