Consider these two statements:
1) Barack Obama has announced the death of the world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden.
2) Barack Obama is preparing to embark on another election campaign, through which he will seek to gain a second term as President of the United States.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I have no qualms about pointing out two simple, concurrent and indisputably true statements, thus putting them each in the context of the other. The casual consumer of today's news stories may have ignored the juxtaposition of those two statements. They may have ignored the second statement entirely. Put together they might rather easily give rise to one startling question: could the death of Bin Laden, or at least its announcement, really be an Obama campaign stunt?
On further thought, there are circumstantial details which deepen the mutual context of the two, and support the suspicions.
Firstly, Obama's popularity has waned in recent times due, at least in part, to the faltering global economy. The initial euphoria which followed his historic election victory had been slowing against the traction of reality - and of the rising anti-Obama 'birther' movement.
Killing Bin Laden is a huge publicity boon which will undoubtedly bolster Obama's chances in the forthcoming polls.
The announcement and coverage of Bin Laden's death, in particular Obama's Presidential statement, has been highly stage-managed. Watch the footage of the Presidential address: this is no ordinary political press release. Stood in an open chamber with imperial-looking ornaments behind him, Obama is playing on a carefully arranged stage. His role? He is playing Caesar, grandiose in victory and basking in the adulation of his subjects.
His language too is that of the conquering hero: "At my request a team was despatched"; "on my orders Bin Laden was killed"; "none of my troops were killed"; "we will continue to protect and defend our country, our friends and our allies."
In the hyperbole, this is not just America's victory: it is the single greatest achievement for which Barack Obama will be written in to the great, on-going saga of the American Dream.
There is a word for both the language and the staging of the message, and it is a word seldom-used for but no less true of the 'good guys' of the west. The word is propaganda. If you strip away the 'evil' associations of the word (it is perhaps most commonly thought of as a feature of Nazism), it refers simply to shaping your communications to influence the thoughts, beliefs and values that make up 'public opinion' to your own ends. Every politician uses propaganda, whether by dropping leaflets through their constituent's doors, or through speeches delivered to a global audience.
Propaganda does not, as some might think, necessarily involve outright lies. It does usually, however, include an element of what is commonly referred to as 'spin.' Spin is what allows two separate bodies to produce statements which contradict each other and yet remain both technically true.
For example, David Cameron will state that the Alternative Vote system (AV) is not a proportional system. Nick Clegg will say instead that it is more proportional than our current system. Both statements are, in fact, true. By a careful use of omission, emphasis and inference the two leaders are able to use parts of the truth for their own purposes. The full truth of both of their statements is that AV is more proportional than our current system, but not by much, and there are more proportional systems available - but such a balanced view is of no political use to either Cameron or Clegg.
Of course, serving the electorate and keeping them fully informed is not a politician's first priority. Their first priority is to get elected or, in other words, to further their own political desires. Obama is no different to Clegg or Cameron in this respect.
The ideas of spin and propaganda can be used to support conspiracy theories. As much as he has emphasised his own coup, Obama has carefully omitted the details which do not serve his agenda. For example, why did the US wait until now if they had "a good idea" of his location in August, or, as some reports suggest, as long ago as 2008? How was the attack pulled off so quickly and so neatly once the order was given, and why was Bin Laden's body disposed of so soon afterwards? Why was he not taken alive - for interrogation, trial and execution - in the same way as Saddam Hussein? How will the Taleban, al-Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist community react? We can only speculate on these questions while Obama and the agents of pro-western media concentrate dogmatically on giving his one message: WE GOT HIM!
This is a powerful message delivered in the context of 9/11 and the global war in terror. It is important though to realise that this is not the full context, and it is not the war won. In the worst case scenario, Bin Laden's martyrdom may become more dangerous than his exiled and therefore partially neutered existence of the last decade.
The use of spin does not make a politician dishonest, but it requires the insightful observer to read that which has not been said as much as that which has.
Justice in the personal case of Osama Bin Laden has, probably, been served. If he was responsible for 9/11, as we believe him to have been, then this death is not punishment enough: if I were a religious man I would enjoy the thought of him burning deep down in the fires of Hell. I do not possess such faith. Those who might believe Bin Laden to be a martyr, however, do. They might tell you that, having been released from his mortal struggle, he is most likely to be enjoying his rewards in Paradise.
America and the western world can celebrate today, but this is not purely the great victory that you have been seeing on your television screens. It would be remiss to not cast at least a cursory glance towards what lies beneath the victory, and what this might mean for tomorrow. The international community has already placed its terror defences on red alert. They seem to share my ominous sense of foreboding: the joyous spoils of war could, all too easily, become the precursor to a whole new era of tragedy, loss and terror.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5
