- Jul 29, 2001
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Psyops specialists know that one of the strongest human tendencies is to try to conform to a group. Their objective is to create a din of jingoism pushing for "our" team intimidating others, and at the very least causing dissenters to lay low. It is not a good idea to go against the grain in the middle of a riled crowd. This is achieved by filtering the news so that it fits in with the desired message by, e.g., "embedding" of journalists, incorporation of censors within the main media networks, and shutting out alternative news sources. The result was stoking rampant jingoism in the US--and a mostly silenced anti-war movement.
A second important aspect was the cleansing and control of the news flow. As the BBC's Jonathan Marcus wrote on April 17th: "You had this absolute avalanche of material from our colleagues in Baghdad and with the actual units in the field. But in a strange sort of way a lot of it was like looking through a key-hole at a very small piece of the war." All the blood and gore were expunged, and there were only hints of Iraqi suffering. During the 1991 Gulf War the video of bombings played a central role, but this time, its usage was toned down.
