"Naturally, the common people don't want war..."

[goodboy]

"Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

- Hermann Goering, Berlin, 1938

[evermind]

1. Actually, 8 April 1946, at the Nuremberg trials (says snopes.com)

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

Which doesn't for one moment affect the relevance of the quote, of course.

Let's read that just one more time:

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country

That it "works the same" is the main thing the anti-war movement has been up against since 9/11. How to get round it?

[goodboy]

3. There's no doubt the fascists in the White House have studied and

applied many of the same techniques Goering talks about.

[K-W]

5. Goering got many of his techniques from the US public relations

industry. The US and UK were the pioneers in the field of propaganda.

[evermind]

7. Yep, (US PR gurus) Edward L. Bernays and Walter Lippman were

both involved in the Committee on Public Information (CPI, or, sometimes, the "Creel Committee") which was designed to bolster support for US involvement in WWI.

A bit of background on the CPI:

1. saturate the information market

The CPI carefully analysed the routes via which the public absorbed information, and created 19 departments which were charged with the task of saturating each of these with pro-war material.

According to one source, just one of these departments, the Division of News, created over 6,000 separate press releases. These were to provide copy and ideas for up to 20,000 different columns a week. In other departments, orators, filmmakers, essayists, academics, novelists, photographers, cartoonists, illustrators, commercial artists, admen and pamphleteers were employed to lend their talents to the collective effort. Scholarly essays with titles like The German Whisper and Conquest and Kultur abounded. Films like The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin and Wolves of Kultur were the order of the day. It became impossible to participate in the media or engage in society without getting a daily dose of CPI product. Soldiers were assigned duties as "four-minute men", to stand up in movie theatres, public meetings, etc., and give speeches in praise of government policy.

Bernays (1928) wrote:

They not only appealed to the individual by means of every approach, visual, graphic, and auditory to support the national endeavor, but they also secured the cooperation of the key men in every group, persons whose mere word carried authority to hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. They thus automatically gained the support of fraternal, religious, commercial, patriotic, social and local groups whose members took their opinions from their accustomed leaders and spokesmen, or from the periodical publications which they were accustomed to read and believe.

2. use emotional agitation to bypass rational choice

The classic example being a poster showing an exaggeratedly threatening German soldier, and urging the viewer to "Beat Back The Hun With Liberty Bonds." The emotional arousal caused by the image is available for association with the desired action. Vacuous and emotional phrases, such as "Making the world safe for Democracy", framing vague, unarticulated political aspirations in an almost spiritual context, were carefully crafted and disseminated.

3. demonize the enemy

Bernays (1928):

At the same time, the manipulators of patriotic opinion made use of the mental clichés and the emotional habits of the public to produce mass reactions against the alleged atrocities, the terror and the tyranny of the enemy.

Bernays, who served as director of the Latin American Division, later admitted that his colleagues in the CPI had invented atrocities by the Germans. Lies from previous wars were recycled, such as the story of a seven year old boy confronting enemy soldiers with his toy gun, and stranger tales (one apparently involved a tub full of eyeballs).

This technique has a sound basis in Freudian theory. The more the public project their inner demons onto the symbols of the enemy, the more, in fact, the enemy itself becomes a symbol for evil, the more emotional energy is available for more specific direction, as above.

Summing this up, in his 1951 Public Relations, Bernays would write that the CPI

bombarded the public unceasingly with enthusiastic reports of the nation's colossal war effort [...] Dissenting voices were stilled, either by agreement with the press or by the persuasive action of the agents of the Department of Justice.

Intellectual and emotional bombardment aroused Americans to a pitch of enthusiasm. The bombardment came at people from all sides - advertisements, news, volunteer speakers, posters, schools, theaters; millions of homes displayed service flags. The war aims and ideals were continually projected to the eyes and ears of the populace. These high-pressure methods were new at the time, but have become usual since then. [...]

The most fantastic atrocity stories were believed.

Bernays and Lippman both went on to successful careers in civil PR, and wrote books on their methods that ended up on Goebbels' shelves:

It seems Bernays' writings and Bernays-style PR played a large part in defining the realities of Nazi Germany, too: according to Bernays' autobiography Biography of an Idea, he was informed by Hans Weigand, respected foreign correspondent, that Nazi propaganda maestro, Joseph Goebbels "was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany"; and Bernays' peer in the PR world, Ivey Lee, opted to go to work on the German side, where it seems the techniques employed to demonize Jews in the eyes of German nationals would have been familiar to any CPI alumnus.

( Quotes from my Bernays bio at http://www.everything2.com/?node=edward+l.+bernays )

[Petrodollar Warfare]

2. Manifest Subterfuge (exerts)

Manifest Subterfuge: Disguising the Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Rationales for War

"The sanctions exist ... for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein’s ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction …. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

- Secretary of State Powell, February 24, 2001


"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

-Vice President Cheney, August 26, 2002


"Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan."

- Secretary of State Powell, February 5, 2003


"Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons."

-President George W. Bush, March 17, 2003


We are asked … to accept ... that Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons .… I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.

-Prime Minister Blair, March 18, 2003


Goering: Why, of course, the people don’t want war …. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Goering: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

-Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist, interviewed and recorded the observations of Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshal and Luftwaffe chief, during the Nurenberg War Criminal trials, April 18, 1946
(Source: Gilbert, G. M., Nurenberg Diary, New York: Signet, 1947)


Buildup to Gulf War II:
Saddam Hussein and Weapons of Mass Destruction

The propaganda tactics for promoting war, as bluntly revealed by an unrepentant Hermann Goering, are just as effective today as they were during the 20th century. When the press becomes subservient to the desires of political leaders, even modern democracies, such as the US and UK, are not immune to the historical effectiveness of propaganda to bring a frightful population “to the bidding of the leaders.”

Regarding Iraq, the effective use of propaganda techniques by the Bush administration was especially critical, given their unique task of justifying the US’ first-ever “preventative war.” However, well before this campaign, it is clear that invading Iraq was a priority from the beginning. Former secretary of the treasury Paul O’Neill recalled that, during the very first national security meeting of the Bush administration, toppling Saddam Hussein was its focus. The Price of Loyalty revealed that this was at the top of the national security agenda just ten days after George W. Bush was sworn in as the 43rd president, eight months before the September 11th terrorists attacks.

Despite over 400 unfettered UN inspections before the 2003 invasion, and hundreds more after the war, there has been no reported evidence that Iraq had reconstituted any aspects of its previous WMD program.

In fact, researchers had carefully deconstructed most of the WMD claims made by the Bush and Blair administrations before the Iraq War, but the media did not provide proper analysis of these counterclaims. On March 6, 2003, less than two weeks before the outbreak of the Iraq War, Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, testified to the UN Security Council that, “No proscribed activities, or the result of such activities, from the period of 1998–2002 have, so far, been detected through inspections.” The following day International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei informed the UN Security Council of his finding, “After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq.”

Nonetheless, the “imminent threat” to national security purported by the Bush and Blair administrations was used to justify initiating the war a few days later. Of critical note is that had the UN weapons inspectors been able to complete their prewar inspection in the spring of 2003, Blix would have declared Iraq to be disarmed and free of WMD. According to Blix, “Had we had a few months more , we would have been able to tell both the CIA and others that there were no weapons of mass destruction all the sites that they had given us.”

This would have ended the 1991 UN sanctions against Iraq and allowed Saddam’s contractual agreements with TotalELF, Lukoil, and Sin-oil (French, Russian, and Chinese) oil firms to begin exploration in Iraq — with an alternative euro-driven oil transaction currency. Obviously this was not an acceptable outcome to the US and UK governments and the powerful oil interests (BP, Exxon-Mobil, TexacoChevron, and Shell Oil) who influence such political decisions...

(misc. exerts from Chapter 4 of 'Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar')

[goodboy]

4. EXCELLENT POST, Petro! Excellent! (nt)

[Petrodollar Warfare]

6. Mushroom Clouds to Inspire the Vulgar Many

(...a few more exerts from Chapter 4...)

Straussian Necessity of an External Threat:
Mushroom Clouds to Inspire the Vulgar Many


"Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon. Just how soon we cannot gauge."

-Vice President Cheney, August 26, 2002


"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons, but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

-National Security Advisor Rice, September 8, 2002


"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof ... the smoking gun ... that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

-President George W. Bush, October 7, 2002


An Iraqi nuclear weapon might bring "the sight of the first mushroom cloud on one of the major population centers on this planet."

-General Franks, November 12, 2002


"We know he’s been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

-Vice President Cheney, March 16, 2003


"I don’t believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."

-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, May 14, 2003


"Yeah, I did misspeak .…We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon."

-Vice President Cheney, September 14, 2003


This final quote from Cheney is rather surprising considering his comments of August 2002 and March 2003. These intervening months just before the war were remarkable. Senior members of the executive branch and a top US military commander appear to have made a coordinated attempt to create massive societal fear. Repeated references to nuclear weapons, smoking gun, and mushroom clouds were clearly aimed at instilling Strauss’s “fear of impending death or catastrophe” in the of the American public’s imaginations.

However, if one can overcome that fear and critically examine the available facts, it appears highly doubtful that Saddam Hussein could have reconstituted an undetected nuclear weapons program under the UN sanctions. Likewise, Saddam — an emphatically secular leader — was unlikely to provide any weapons to Islamic terrorists.

Despite inherent logical contradictions of an unprovoked WMD attack by the Iraqi government, in August 2002 Cheney introduced the notion that Saddam Hussein would acquire nuclear weapons “fairly soon.” Not coincidentally, on the one-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Rice famously remarked that failure to “disarm” Saddam might produce a “smoking gun” in the form of a “mushroom cloud.” Introducing the terrifying image of a mushroom cloud to the America citizens when their emotions were heightened was a highly effective method for instilling generalized fear.

The coup de grâce to “inspire” the American people that an imminent “external threat” existed from a nuclear-armed Saddam was provided by General Franks and Rumsfeld. On November 12, 2002, Franks warned that inaction might produce the “first mushroom cloud on one of the major population centers on this planet.” Two days later Rumsfeld stated, “Within a week, or a month, Saddam could give his WMD to al-Qa’ida.”

Tragically, the subservient US media conglomerates uncritically repeated and amplified the government’s fear-inspiring propaganda campaign. Members of Congress who questioned the drive to war were quickly denounced. These events vividly illustrate how the power wielded by a few government officials can easily bring a frightful population “to the bidding of the leaders.” Just as Hermann Goering stated, political leaders seeking war will always attack the pacifists for “lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

[goodboy]

8. reading that makes my blood boil. is that the "noble cause" that's

killed 1854 US troops?

is that the "noble cause" that's destroyed Tens of Thousands of lives?

[Petrodollar Warfare]

10. a few more insight into neoconservative governance...

Leo Strauss 1899- 1973:
Philosophical Father of the Neoconservatives

"Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed .… Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united — and they can only be united against other people."

"Those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right — the right of the superior to rule over the inferior .… The people are told what they need to know and no more."

- Leo Strauss, thoughts on government and the wise elites’ need for secrecy, Natural Right and History and Persecution and the Art of Writing


"Everybody sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are, and those few will not dare to oppose themselves to the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them .… Let a prince therefore aim at conquering and maintaining the state, and the means will always be judged honourable and praised by everyone, for the vulgar is always taken by appearances."

-Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513


"In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to ‘enter into evil.’ This is the chilling insight that has made Machiavelli so feared, admired, and challenging. It is why we are drawn to him still."

-Michael A. Ledeen, leading neoconservative at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), advisor to President Bush’s political strategist Karl Rove, as quoted in his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago, 1999



It is widely acknowledged that the Bush administration was not honest about the reasons it gave to the public for the invasion of Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy secretary of defense, acknowledged that the “intelligence” used to justify the war was always “murky” and that the main rationale for the Iraq War, “disarming Saddam” of a supposed reconstituted WMD program, was in essence a “bureaucratic decison.” Wolfowitz’s neoconservative colleague Richard Perle admitted that the war was in violation of international law but nonetheless stated it was the “right thing” to do.

This philosophy of governance openly advocates an end-justifies-the-means mentality, allowing deception, violence, and the abrogation of international law. Many Americans have difficulty believing the Bush administration purposely engaged in a campaign of diversion and deception to convince the public that an invasion of Iraq was urgent and necessary. However, while the idea is disconcerting, it is hardly surprising, given the self-proclaimed philosophical underpinning of neoconservative ideology.

In 1938 German political philosopher Leo Strauss arrived in the US, an ethnic Jew and refugee from Nazi Germany. As a professor at the University of Chicago, he specialized in philosophical analysis of the classic Greek tradition and basic philosophical questions, including the structure of society and whether it can be governed on rational principles. Wolfowitz, a leading advocate of neoconservatism, was introduced to Straussian ideology while earning his PhD under him at the University of Chicago.

Shadia Drury, professor of political theory at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, wrote an extensive analysis of Straussian ideology in two books, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss24 and Leo Strauss and the American Right. She deftly argued that the use of deception and manipulation in current US policy flows directly from the doctrines espoused by Strauss, including the philosophy that deception is the normal process in politics. Therefore secrecy is a paramount goal of government, especially regarding foreign policy issues.

According to Drury, Strauss believed that society comprised three classes of people, of which only the “wise elite” were capable of governing. He proposed that the elites were required to engage in “perpetual deception” over those that were to be ruled.

There are indeed three types of men: the wise, the gentlemen, and the vulgar. The wise are the lovers of the harsh, unadulterated truth. They are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and trembling. They recognise neither God nor moral imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own pursuit of the “higher” pleasures.

The second type, the gentlemen, are lovers of honour and glory. They are the most ingratiating toward the conventions of their society — that is, the illusions of the cave. They are true believers in God, honour, and moral imperatives. They are ready and willing to embark on acts of great courage and self-sacrifice at a moment’s notice.

The third type, the vulgar many, are lovers of wealth and pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent. They can be inspired to rise above their brutish existence only by fear of impending death or catastrophe.

In Strauss’s framework, "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior .… The people are told what they need to know and no more." While the elite are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not be exposed to the truth or they would fall into nihilism or anarchy. His ideology of governing via secrecy, deception, and the imperative of a broad external threat to “inspire the vulgar many” provides a tragic parallel to the neoconservative strategy regarding Iraq.

Strauss was openly contemptuous of secular democracy — he stated that religion is absolutely essential for imposing moral law on the masses (or vulgar many). At the same time, he stressed, religion is to be reserved for the masses, as the ruling elite need not be bound by it. He argued it would be illogical for the rulers to be bound by religion, since the truths proclaimed by religion are in his words “a pious fraud.” Hence, secular society is the least desirable situation because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism.

Ironically, while these traits are those the founders of the United States viewed as most desirable, in the Straussian ideology these ideals only promote dissent, which weakens society’s ability to cope with external threats. Strauss was ambivalent as to which religion was needed to facilitate social control of the masses, only that a religion was required.

Strauss also believed that the inherently aggressive nature of human beings could only be restrained by a powerful nationalistic state: “Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed …. Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people.” Drury observed that the requirement of “perpetual war” in the Straussian political framework and an “external threat” must exist, even if it is manufactured. She concluded with this foreboding analysis of how Straussian philosophy permeated the underlying neoconservative political strategy:

"In short, they all thought that man’s humanity depended on his willingness to rush naked into battle and headlong to his death. Only perpetual war can overturn the modern project, with its emphasis on self-preservation and ‘creature comforts.’

This terrifying vision fits perfectly well with the desire for honour and glory that the neo-conservative gentlemen covet. It also fits very well with the religious sensibilities of gentlemen. The combination of religion and nationalism is the elixir that Strauss advocates as the way to turn natural, relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die for their God and country.

I never imagined when I wrote my first book on Strauss that the unscrupulous elite that he elevates would ever come so close to political power, nor that the ominous tyranny of the wise would ever come so close to being realized in the political life of a great nation like the United States. But fear is the greatest ally of tyranny."

Straussian ideology regarding foreign policy, plainly Machiavellian in orientation, was expanded and formally articulated by neoconservative groups, such as the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Karl Rove, President Bush’s political advisor, boasted that he read Machiavelli’s The Prince for insights into his political strategy. Straussian governing philosophy requires strict secrecy, and this was certainly the case with the preplanned invasion of Iraq.


Footnotes:

Danny Postel, “Noble Lies and Perpetual War: Leo Strauss, the Neo-cons, and Iraq,” October 16, 2003, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm.

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, written 1513, first published 1532.

Michael Ledeen, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today As Five Centuries Ago, St. Martin’s Press, 1999, p. 91.

“Wolfowitz: Iraq Intel Was ‘Murky,’” CBS News/Associated Press, July 31, 2003, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/31/iraq/main566000.shtml.

Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger, “War Critics Astonished as US Hawk Admits Invasion Was Illegal,” Guardian (UK), November 20, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html.

Danny, Postel, op. cit.

Shadia Drury, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, Palgrave Macmillan, 1988.

Shadia Drury, Leo Strauss and the American Right, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.

Danny Postel, op. cit.

Louis Dubose, “Bush’s Hit Man: Karl Rove Wins…by Any Means Necessary,” Texas Observer, March 16, 2001, http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=398.

[leftchick]

9. That is on my refridgerator

hase been there for over 2 years now.

[Liberal In Texas]

11. Thanks for the post G'boy. n/t

[goodboy]

12. You're welcome! (nt)