Postmodern marketing hasn’t just permeated politics; it has invaded all aspects of life, including military planning and propaganda. In the lead-in to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, we first heard of “shock and awe,” an apparent sales pitch for the paralyzing effects of firepower. Another slick military term followed soon after, “The Voila Moment.” According to author Naomi Klein, VM was “likely the product of the Bush administration’s penchant for hiring advertising executives and flakey management consultants as foreign policy advisors.” She explained The Voila Moment: “That’s when Iraqi soldiers and civilians, with bombs raining down on Baghdad, suddenly scratch their heads and say to themselves, ‘These bombs aren’t really meant to kill me and my family, they are meant to free us from an evil dictator!’ At that point, they thank Uncle Sam, lower their weapons, abandon their posts, and rise up against Saddam Hussein. Voila!”
It turned out the Iraqis were less favourably disposed to a Voila Moment than the corporate mythmakers who dreamed it into being. It was all part of a well rehearsed folie à deux on the coalition side – a delusion shared by two or more people. There were also plenty of news consumers along for the ride, people who believed the Iraqis would greet coalition forces as liberators. As we all know now, that turned out to be another unwarranted projection onto a foreign people.
Ilona Meagher on 25 Nov 09"So after Gregg Keesling's son killed himself in Iraq in June, he expected his family would receive a letter from President Obama. What they got instead was a call from an Army official telling them that they were not eligible because their son had committed suicide. "We were shocked," said Mr. Keesling, 52, of Indianapolis. Under an unwritten policy that has existed at least since the Clinton administration, presidents have not sent letters to survivors of troops who took their own lives, even if it was at the war front, officials say. The roots of that policy, which has been passed from administration to administration via White House protocol officers, are murky and probably based in the view that suicide is not an honorable way to die, administration and military officials say."
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