Floating On A Dinghy
Why Facts on Iraq Don't Matter
By Isa F. Atkins
14 July 2003
I have read it twenty times and I still don't believe it. The latest PIPA Knowledge Networks poll shows that a third of the American public believes US forces have actually found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A further 22 per cent think Iraqi troops used banned chemical or biological weapons against US soldiers in Iraq.
Poll analysts, who go to great pains to appear to respect the subjects of their research, have come up with an interesting name for this surreal phenomenon. They call it 'cognitive dissonance'. When pressed to explain the meaning of this term in plain English, they admit -with a sense of humble discomfort- that it describes the lack of agreement between reality and a person's understanding of it. In other words, it describes one's inability, or even downright unwillingness, to grasp the truth.
Not surprisingly, the poll showed that the above erroneous beliefs were expressed primarily by those supporting the war on Iraq.
Now, it is true that ever since Antonio Gramsci's writings were smuggled out of his stingy Italian prison cell, educated liberals have accused media propaganda of being responsible for popular misconceptions throughoutthis century's wars. And, granted, with ample reason. From the paid lies of American Civil War correspondents, to the fraudulent nationalistic rants of reporters covering World War I, to the disgraceful, corrupt journalist intelligentsia of the Cold War, no modern institution is more directly responsible for the perpetuation of mass militarism than the corporate media -and this includes the military itself. ....
This essay concurs with my analysis that the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance explains why Americans believe that WMDs not only have been found in Iraq but were also used on US forces. We got a uphill battle folks to 'rescue' the minds of the American public.