Friday, November 22, 1996
PATRIOTISM:
Being proud of flag has little to do with dehumanizing enemiesBy
Adam K. Ake
While there are some insightful comments in Paul Biery’s Nov. 15
column ("Dehumanizing the enemy necessary for war"), I think that
his basic premise, that patriotism somehow causes blind allegiance
and vilification, is overwhelmingly faulty.
While there are many cases in our nation’s history where
propaganda has indeed dehumanized our enemies  "Butcher"
Weyland and the Spaniards in Cuba in 1898, the German "Huns" of
World War I and the "Japs," who we made the first targets of atomic
weapons in World War II Â to confuse this wartime propaganda
with patriotism is harmful. The insinuation Biery makes is that
your average flag-waving citizen who trusts his or her national
leadership is opening themselves up to this type of manipulation is
downright cynical and misses modern developments. Modern media such
as this paper have made the day when citizens blindly believed
everything they were told (hopefully) a thing of the past, and the
past several conflicts we have been involved in have borne this
out.
In Panama, there was no confusion as to who was the enemy.
Noriega and his small minority of backers were the targets, not the
Panamanian people as a whole, who generally supported the
unilateral U.S. action. In Iraq as well, there was a clear
distinction drawn between the Iraqi people and their political
leadership  Saddam and his military power base, as opposed to
the general population, were the target of the military action.
Yes, this nation was guilty of generalizing the evils of
communist leaders to the entire Soviet population during the Cold
War. But to decry President Reagan’s proclamation that the USSR was
an "evil empire" is to gloss over the atrocities committed in the
name of communism under that same Soviet government. Any nation
capable of killing up to 30 million of its own in Stalin’s purges,
sending hundreds of thousands more to concentration camps in
Siberia, and placing its people in a constant state of privation
and fear cannot be viewed highly.
Since the end of the Cold War, our military has indeed been in
search of a new enemy  not to satisfy any blood thirst, but
to define itself and its mission. This search for a role has not
involved any "dehumanizing" propaganda to my knowledge, but has
looked at capabilities and national aims of potential adversaries.
To imply that the goal of this is to cause the population to rise
up in a war-fury is nonsense.
"When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the
citizen."
 George Washington.