conflicts has been fear of a public backlash, as many believe happened when the Vietnam war dragged on for year after year, with no end in sight.
Certainly the Bush Administration wished to shape the message so that the people would accept the necessity. In waging a war, there is always a tendency to demonize the enemy, to portray that enemy as less than human, as more cruel, more stubborn, more foolish than our side and perhaps than any enemy has ever been before. Fervor for the war can become pervasive and influence how people think, and it can also influence how the media portrays the enemy. Even if the media is trying to remain objective, stereotypical thinking about foreign people can color coverage and misrepresent reality.
THE IMAGE OF THE WAR AND THE REALITY
Operation Desert Storm was viewed as one of the signal successes of the Bush Administration. The war had its critics, but in general it was seen as (and touted as by the Bush Administration) a necessary action, a well-coordinated military operation, and an instance of American success after many years of failures, or at best inaction. The war produced an environmental nightmare as the Iraqi forces tried to destroy the Kuwaiti oil fields by setting them on fire and by spilling some of the oil reserves into the waters of the Gulf. While it was acknowledged that environmental economic issues were involved at the end of the war, it was not always acknowledged that they were essential in bringing about the American response in the first place. President Bush promoted the war as a necessary action to curb Iraqi aggression and to protect the integrity of Kuwait, but this underplayed the real role of the Kuwaiti oil fields and the American need for a continuation of delivery of that oil.
Amin notes that the Gulf War as presented in and to the Western media had but one objective--enforcing the rule of law and under that banner the liberation of Kuwait. The obj...