War propaganda

War propaganda  (Propaganda)

War propaganda is used by nation states to justify their own engagement in a war and to uphold morale and support for the war throughout. It can continue afterwards when certain narratives that have been constructed are important to the power-structures that are the victors. A Casus belli has historically been used to justify one's own entry into it (see Patrick Clawsons remarks at a QA of the Washington Institute in 2012).

Slate wrote in 2005 during the 2nd Iraq war:

A calculated and systematic effort to manage public opinion, it transcends mere lying and routine political dishonesty. When the Bush administration manufactures fake “news,” suppresses real news, disguises the former as the latter, and challenges the legitimacy of the independent press, it corrodes trust in leaders, institutions, and, to the rest of the world, the United States as a whole.

The Basic Principles of War Propaganda

Anne Morelli summarized and systematized the contents of Arthur Ponsonby's classic on war propaganda in "ten commandments of propaganda":

1. We do not want war.
2. The enemy alone is to be blamed for the war.
3. The enemy is inherently evil, resembling the devil.
4. We defend a noble cause, not our own interest.
5. The enemy commits atrocities on purpose; our mishaps are involuntary.
6. The enemy uses illegal weapons.
7. We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.
8. Artists and intellectuals back our cause.
9. Our cause is holy, it has a sacred character.
10. Whoever doubts our propaganda, is a traitor.

 

Examples

Page name	Description
"Iraq/WMD"
'A Gay Girl In Damascus'	A false media personality to create a mood in Western liberal opinion for regime change in Syria
Authors' Declaration of September 1914	An declaration in support of World War 1 by 53 leading British authors. One of the earliest efforts of the nascent War Propaganda Bureau to craft a coherent intellectual message in support of the war effort.
Casus belli	A pretext for war, typically a false flag attack
Jessica Lynch/Rescue	Special forces rescue operation that was not actually necessary, but initiated to bring some uplifting news from Iraq.
Operation Horseshoe	war propaganda fake news from 1999
Operation Mass Appeal	An effort by MI6 to facilitate the UK's invasion of Iraq.
Wonder Woman	Superhero movie that came out the same year Hillary Clinton was supposed to become president and invade Syria.

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