Gulf War | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

In the early nineties, the Gulf War marked a new dawn for American hegemony. Former adversaries of American militarism—the Communists, the Arabs, and the American left—were held in check, as the United States armed forces were able to quickly expel an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. With her Soviet, Chinese, and Arab rivals needing American economic support, the United States obtained the consent of many governments for a war in the Persian Gulf. New techniques in public relations extended this consent to a vast majority of American citizens, making it the most popular war since World War II.

On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded the kingdom of Kuwait. President Saddam Hussein of Iraq contended that the attack was justified because Kuwait's royals were plundering a commonly held oil field. Within hours, the large army of Iraq overwhelmed puny defenses and occupied Kuwait. The next day, a majority of Arab states called on Hussein to withdraw. On August 6, the United Nations Security Council imposed a total trade embargo against Iraq. By August 31, Operation Desert Shield had deployed over 60,000 United States troops in Saudi Arabia. In September, the Soviet Union gave support to armed intervention, and on November 29 the United Nations Security Council voted, for the first time since 1950, to use force.

In the Gulf, the new might or New World Order of the United States was unveiled. The unprecedented consent of Communist and Arab states showed how completely the United States dominated politics. With little opposition, Americans acted to preserve the lifeblood of Western economies: the steady flow of cheap oil. On January 17, 1991 military operation Desert Storm, an attack plan to free Kuwait, was unleashed. The United States Air Force flew 1,300 sorties, while the Navy fired hundreds of cruise missiles; almost immediately air supremacy was established and heavy casualties were inflicted on the ground. On February 24, ground forces began their attack. Within 100 hours they were deep inside of Iraq. Six weeks after it had begun, the Gulf War was essentially won.

Satellite transmissions for the first time televised war instantly. With televisions now in nearly every home in America, the war wasbroadcast widely and played to high Nielson ratings. American newsmedia, now global corporations vying for market share, sought to outdo one another in a heated competition for the large viewing audience. Live updates, exclusive Pentagon interviews, and dazzling graphics captured the public's attention. Detailed discussions of American military technology helped to explain America's superior machinery of war. As daily reports of United States victories came home, President George Bush's approval rating soared to a presidential record 90 percent. Bush pronounced, "We've licked the Vietnam syndrome!"

At home, some critics accused journalists of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in reporting, but pro-war propaganda mostly avoided the tradition of racializing the enemy. Nor, as in times past, was the invaded country a featured victim. Kuwait's brutal monarchy did not invite a great deal of sympathy. In a highly publicized testimony before the United States Congress, however, a young Kuwaiti aristocrat sobbed as she testified that Iraqi troops had torn babies from hospital incubators and skewered them on their bayonets. The testimony, which was later exposed as a fabrication, helped arouse both public and political sentiment against the purported barbarism of Iraqis.

Most pro-war propaganda targeted Saddam Hussein, whose name became synonymous with evil. From President Bush to the editorials of major newspapers, "Saddam" was the entire focal point for American bombs. Saddam was said to have stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, a budding nuclear weapons program, and designs on conquering Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps the most startling Gulf War legacy left to American popular culture was the transformed nature of mass-mediated information. Unlike the Vietnam War, journalists were denied access to the front and could report only on the Pentagon's tightly controlled press releases. Moreover, a great deal of the information and military photography provided to journalists was falsified to augment the image of American military and technological prowess. Reports of Patriot missiles intercepting enemy SCUD missiles later proved to be completely untrue. Dramatic footage of a smart or guided missile entering the shaft of an Iraqi building was discovered to be a hoax. Scenes of death from friendly fire, Iraqi civilian casualties and other carnage were censored by the Pentagon. As it turned out, the much lauded surgical strike, the clean precision of American smart bombs, was actually the neat appendectomy of objective journalism. In the made-for-television coverage of the war, only the most optimistic scenes reached the viewing audience.

Critical opinions of the war had limited space in the newsmedia. The accusation that the United States fought only to restore the flow of cheap oil from Kuwait's dictatorship went unheard. On the home front, massive antiwar rallies in San Francisco and Washington D.C. and at universities and elsewhere received little coverage in the news, and were often balanced with scenes of small gatherings of people displaying yellow ribbons. Yellow ribbons, the symbol of support for the war, adorned schools, shopfronts, citizens, and were included in corporate advertising. Many members of the newsmedia used a graphic of the yellow ribbon in their broadcasts of the war. New advances in the crafting of political spin, military public relations, and television computer graphics collaborated to make a collage of smooth triumph. The soundbite, the live satellite broadcast, and other recent innovations were utilized in the journalistic arena as never before. A picture of national solidarity blanketed the nation. Not since the World War II had such journalistic unity or common opinion been realized.

Despite overwhelming public approval for the war, President Bush and General Colin Powell feared that a prolonged war would generate dissent. Declaring Kuwait liberated and Saddam's might curtailed, Bush terminated the war and declared victory. In the war's aftermath, Bush's popularity fell with an economic recession and with the continued bellicose posturing of Saddam Hussein. Hussein held power through widespread famine and disease resulting from a continuous embargo of Iraq, and remained the single most demonized figure on the political landscape of the 1990s.

Bates, Greg, editor. Mobilizing Democracy: Changing the U.S. Role in the Middle East. Monroe, Maine, Common Courage, 1991.

Graubard, Stephen R. Mr. Bush's War: Adventures in the Politics of Illusion. New York, Hill and Wang, 1992.

Leslie, Paul, editor. The Gulf War as Popular Entertainment: An Analysis of the Military-Industrial Media Complex. Lewiston, New York, E. Mellon Press, 1997.

Yant, Martin. Desert Mirage: The True Story of the Gulf War. New York, Prometheus, 1991.

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