War Situation Impacts Psychology of Americans

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 26, 2003

War Situation Impacts Psychology of Americans

The war situation in the past few days since the start of the Iraqi War has exerted great psychological impacts on the Americans and has deepened their worries.

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The war situation in the past few days since the start of the Iraqi War has exerted great psychological impacts on the Americans and has deepened their worries.

Unfavorable war situation has caused a fall in the stock market

A friend who is teaching in a university in Georgian State said: The US government's expression of its attitude a few days ago and American media reports have given people the idea that the war will end very soon, at one time they declared that Saddam Hussein had lost control, at another time they asserted that Division 51 of the Iraqi army had surrendered as a whole. The public's expectation value has soared too high correspondingly, but as they saw that US troops suffered casualties and were captured, they seemed to have suddenly come to understand that this is fighting battles and a war fought at a cost of blood and sacrifices. Reports say that Bush and Rumsfeld were very angry when they saw that the captives were shown on TV.

The optimistic atmosphere prevailing over the stock market in the past few days has rapidly disappeared, as soon as the stock market opened on March 24, the stock index dropped by a big margin. Although people still believe that the US-British coalition forces would win, they have become increasingly worried about the market stability after the Iraqi War. The anxiety of the economic circle implies that the United States will pay a higher price for the war.

They seem to have just come to know that war means the death of people

Twelve years have passed since the first Gulf War, but it seems that only today the Americans come to know what war implies. A US report says that over the past 12 years, what the Americans have seen about the war on TV is that missiles accurately hit the targets one after another, while personnel casualties are very few. There were only 148 people who died on the battlefield in the first Gulf War, Kosovo had a "zero casualty", and only 16 people died in the Afghan War. In the past decade or more, high-tech weaponry did have experienced very rapid development, at the same time, however, it has given people a misconception. After the first US soldier was killed, a public opinion poll shows that 41 percent people believe that the total number of soldiers wounded and killed in the war will not exceed 100. Before the start of the 1991 Gulf War, only 12 percent of the Americans believed that casualties would not surpass 100. Their misunderstanding of the concept of war would obviously bring strong psychological impacts.

Non-mainstream media enable people to understand the truth

Over the past few days, most American people have come to understand the war situation through CNN, ABC, FOX and other mainstream media. These media choose and broadcast news items from the visual angle of the Americans, because of this, ordinary American people have quite limited understanding about how the Arab world and the general public of the globe look upon the war. In the United States, besides the above-mentioned mainstream TV stations, there are also many foreign-languages stations, for instance, TV stations broadcasting in Chinese, Spanish and other languages. A friend of Chinese origin told the correspondent that he had been watching news every day over the past two days on Taiwan CTI TV which ceaselessly relayed programs from a Qatar TV station. He was not so optimistic about the future of the war. A woman of Philippine origin living in New Mexico came to see a picture on the Philippine Wired TV channel showing her son being captured and tried. Along with the quickening of the process of war, the Americans will see the real facts about the war with increasing clarity through the frontline reports continuously dispatched by correspondents accompanying the troops, and so they would sustain ever-larger psychological impacts.

US troops underestimate Saddam

In the face of the stubborn resistance put up by Iraqi people, US huge troops obviously do not have adequate mental preparation. The "zero casualty" concept affects not only the ordinary people, but also a new generation of soldiers. Judged from the various kinds of high-tech equipment weighing dozens of kg on the backs of the massive US troops, they simply do not intend to engage in close quarter, hand-to-hand fight with the enemies.

American soldiers, who receive US-type "political education" at ordinary times, are affected by US news media and are now fighting on the battlefield, have difficulty getting accurate information. A correspondent going along with the army on the war vessel for news covering said although US soldiers on board the war vessel can see many TV programs which, however, have been filtered by the party concerned. Even news officers on board the warship do not know the mammoth anti-war demonstrations broken out in various big cities of the United States over the past two days. After Bush formally declared war on the evening of March 19, some US TV stations broadcast Saddam's crimes. As a result, in the eyes of many US soldiers, Saddam is a devil mercilessly persecuting ordinary Iraqi people who definitely hate him to the marrow, and therefore long for the US troops to "liberate" them. But in doing such propaganda, these TV stations forget one most important point, i.e., Iraq has political, social and religious foundations completely different from those of the West. Since Iraq could have brought forth this man, Saddam, he will definitely have his own soil, because the result of the war will be finally determined by the Iraqi people.

US troops have suffered a lot because they lack adequate mental preparation. The US troops were reportedly attacked in Nasiriyah because they "took the enemy lightly". When some Iraqi soldiers flaunted white flags and raised their hands, US troops really thought that the enemies were coming to surrender. They did not expect that the Iraqi soldiers, having come near, suddenly opened fire and killed nine American soldiers.

International opinion has become partial to Iraq

One diplomat said that the United States is making the war with a heavy "mental burden" on its back. The United Nations Security Council has granted it no authority and anti-war voices are rising with each passing day in the world. Large-scale anti-war demonstrations have erupted in the United States over the past few days. Most importantly, the entire Arab world, including nearly 7 million American Muslims have been glaring at the war which, if handled improperly, will set the United States against the Arab world. A Pentagon strategist said that judged from the Arab public opinion, there tends to be a strong anti-aggression sentiment very soon. American strategists originally estimated that a prompt military decision could affect the Iraqi public and dispel scepticism in that region. But as things stand now, a more extensive anti-war movement plus the unsuccessful action of US troops in the battlefield will conversely help Saddam, this is true at least for the time being.

The consequence is worrisome once the public sentiment runs out of control

Analysts say if the war doesn't progress smoothly, two kinds of change will possibly take place in the psychology of the American people. First is anti-war sentiment will rise step by step. In the past two days, families of those soldiers who were captured or missing have been calling for an early end to the war, so that their dear ones can go home. The other sentiment obviously merits attention: A university teacher of Chinese descent told the reporter, saying that when he introduced an anti-war article written by a Harvard University professor to his students, he did not expect that they kicked up a fuss. Such sentiment seemed to have returned to the time when the "9.11" incident just ended. What worries some scholars is that once US public sentiment runs out of control, the Bush administration will possibly change its present strategy and it will take Baghdad by force at all costs. The military tactician who created the "deterrent" tactical theory said in his article published in the New York Post recently that he believed the video tape recording the captured US soldiers serves as the best encouragement to US troops, inspiring them to seize victory.

By People's Daily Online

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