For some time now, US political discussion has
seemed to revolve around little stock phrases, such as
"defining moment" (at the time of the first Gulf War),
"the end of history" (at the end of the Cold War), "the
economy, stupid" (in the early Clinton years), "shock
and awe" (as the Iraq war began). Sometimes there's a
revival of one or another. One of these is "winning
hearts and minds". It became popular during the Vietnam
War and is enjoying a vogue in the context of the war in
Iraq.
However, the phrase has undergone an
interesting evolution. This is reflected in two recent
columns, one by Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post, the
other by Mark Bowden in the Los Angeles Times. You might
suppose that any reflection on hearts and minds would
revolve around the elections that are planned for
January in Iraq. How, someone might ask, can the United
States, now hugely disliked in Iraq, make itself so
appealing that Iraqis would vote for a government cut to
US specifications? Yet the principal occasion for the
two writers' reflections is instead the military
campaign - specifically, the marines' assault on
Fallujah.
Back in the days of Vietnam, the
phrase acquired a definite meaning: in a war of
pacification, winning battles was not enough; you also
had to win the population's hearts and minds. If you did
not, each victory in battle would only be the prelude to
further battles, and at the end, when you left, all your
work would be washed away by the contrary will of the
local people, as happened in Vietnam. It was possible to
rule by the sword, as empires have done through the
ages, but then you had to be ready to occupy the country
indefinitely. Winning hearts and minds, therefore, was
not a frill of policy but its foundation, the sine
qua non of victory.
In his discussion of the
invasion of Fallujah, Hoagland begins with a seeming
acknowledgment of the Vietnam lesson. He recognizes that
the measurements of success cannot merely be the
"numbers of insurgents killed or captured, or bomb
factories seized or obliterated". For "as Americans
learned to their grief in Vietnam", such measurements
are "elusive and illusory". We expect to hear at this
point that winning hearts and minds is necessary, and
Hoagland does not disappoint. But he introduces a
variant of the old phrase. Fallujah, he says, "is part
of a battle for minds rather than 'hearts and minds'".
(The title of the article is "Fighting for minds in
Fallujah".) What can he mean? What happened to hearts?
The answer is that the "immediate objective is
to dissuade Sunni townspeople from joining, supporting
or tolerating the insurrection", and "the price they
will pay for doing so is being illustrated graphically
in the streets of Fallujah". This isn't a lesson for the
heart - the organ of love, enthusiasm, positive
approval. The reaction of the heart - whether Iraqi or
American - could only be pity, disgust and indignation.
Thus only the "minds" of "the townspeople" could draw
the necessary conclusions, as they survey the
corpse-strewn wreckage of their city. In short, the
people of Iraq will be stricken with fear, or, to use
another word that's very popular these days, terror.
Then they'll be ready to vote.
Bowden takes up
the same theme. "Guerrilla war is always about hearts
and minds," he notes. He acknowledges that most of the
guerrillas would have escaped in the long buildup to the
attack. Still, he argues, the attack was important.
True, it will not influence the "boldest" souls, who are
motivated by "nationalism, religion, kinship or
ideology". (All these things were applauded in the
recent US election, but they apparently are to have no
place in the life of Iraqis.) But "ordinary people" can
still be won over. How? He arrives at the same
conclusion as Hoagland. "I suspect fear has more to do
with influencing them than anything else." Most Iraqis,
"like sensible people everywhere, are looking to see
which side is most likely to prevail." The stake for
them is "survival" - depending on which side is more
likely to kill them. Bowden wants it to be the United
States. The payoff is not any concrete achievement of
the attack; it is the spectacle of the subjugated city,
which "works as a demonstration of will and power".
Certainly, the assault on Fallujah has given the
Iraqi people a lot to look at, and a lot to think about.
Some 200,000 people - the great majority of Fallujah's
population of some 300,000 - were driven out of their
city by news of the imminent attack and the US
bombardment. No agency of government, US or Iraqi, which
turned off the city's water and electricity in
preparation for the assault, offered assistance. Nor did
the United Nations Refugee Agency or any other
representative of the international community appear.
And where are the people now? And what stories are the
expelled 200,000 telling the millions of Iraqis among
whom they are now mixing? We don't know. No one seems to
be interested.
When the attack came, the first
target was Fallujah General Hospital. The New York Times
explained why: "The offensive also shut down what
officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants:
Fallujah General Hospital, with its stream of reports of
civilian casualties." If there were no hospital, there
would be no visible casualties; if there were no visible
casualties, there would be no international outrage, and
all would be well. What of those civilians who remained?
No men of military age were permitted to leave during
the attack. Remaining civilians were trapped in their
apartments with no electricity or water. No one knows
how many of them have been killed, and no official group
has any plans to find out. The city itself is a ruin. "A
drive through the city revealed a picture of utter
destruction," The Independent of Britain reports, "with
concrete houses flattened, mosques in ruins, telegraph
poles down, power and phone lines hanging slack and
rubble and human remains littering the empty streets."
Both American columnists do mention the
elections. Bowden says the best hope for Iraq is "for
elections to take place", and Hoagland believes the
attack on Fallujah will "clear the way" for them. Ballot
boxes are to spring up in the tracks of the tanks. Some
commentators even refer to "the Sunni heartland". (As
far as I can tell, no one has yet asked how Iraqi
"security moms" will vote.) Meanwhile, the insurgency,
failing so far to learn its lesson, has opened fronts in
other cities, which may soon get the same treatment as
Fallujah. "They made a wasteland and called it peace,"
Tacitus famously said. It was left to the United States,
champion of freedom, to update the formula: They made a
wasteland and called it democracy.
Jonathan
Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation
Institute. His most recent book is The Unconquerable
World. This article will appear in the December 6
issue of The Nation magazine and has already appeared
onTomdispatch. It is used here
by permission.
