Public Issue Life Cycle: Life

Public Issue Life Cycle: Life in Iraq One of the most interesting issues about the public issue life cycle is that it does not have any relationship to the severity of problems discussed. On the contrary, the public issue life cycle exists because of the limited attention span of the public. How long the public focuses on a particular issue seems to be related to the public's perception that the issue is one that can be fixed.

Problems that seem unsolvable are abandoned, only to be brought up again in a later cycle, treated as if they are new issues. If something only remains in the press if it has the capability of creating the type of political pressure needed to effectuate real change, and the underlying issue described seems as if it does not have a solution, it is unlikely to remain a newsworthy issue, regardless of the severity of the problem.

A good example of this phenomenon is the way that the media and the public have treated the issue of civilian life in Iraq since the beginning of the Iraq War. When the war began, the press emphasized the atrocities that Hussein was committing against Iraqi civilians, drawing substantial parallels between Hussein and Hitler. Dick Cheney asserted that the American troops entering Iraq would be "greeted as liberators and that the Iraqi people would happily join in the fight for democracy. (MSNBC.com).

The reality has been far more complex; while the war has undoubtedly bettered the circumstances of some Iraqis, it has also made actual living conditions worse for many Iraqis. The country's infrastructure has been destroyed, families have been ripped apart, and the educational and quality-of-life improvements that many Iraqis saw under Hussein's regime have virtually disappeared.

However, there is little that the average American can do to change those living conditions; therefore press coverage has dwindled, despite the fact that there has been no appreciable change in the living conditions of most Iraqis during the transition period. When the Iraqi war first began, the press emphasized the parallels between Hussein and Hitler. One of the ways that they did so was to emphasize Hussein's genocidal activities. The press pointed out that Hussein led genocide against the Kurds, which resulted in at least 180,000 dead. (Shaban).

Furthermore, the press emphasized that Hussein, like Hitler, was not content to confine his activities to Iraq. He had already gone to war in Kuwait and was known to promote a war against Iran. (Shaban). In addition, the press did not specifically address Hussein's position towards Jews, a notable omission given that the vast majority of Americans lump Muslims together and would equate the problems between Israel and other Muslim countries with an Iraqi attitude towards Jews, despite the lack of a true connection.

Moreover, what was not emphasized was the quality of life experienced by most Iraqis prior to either Gulf War. The country was relatively prosperous and women actually experienced greater benefits in Iraq than in most Middle-Eastern countries. However, those elements were downplayed in the press, as was the fact that the major impact on quality-of-life for most Iraqis began with the economic sanctions imposed in the early 1990s. While that information was readily available, it was not heavily publicized.

As a result, much of the American public believed that the American troops would be greeted as liberators, much as they had been when entering into concentration camps and freeing people at the conclusion of World War II. It is easy to see that, at the beginning of the War, the majority of Americans viewed an Iraq invasion as the most utilitarian approach to solving the problem of Hussein.

Given the information that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and intent to use them against the United States, the American people could easily believe that it was in the best interest of America to invade Iraq. However, many Americans were still troubled over the idea that any invasion would result in the deaths of civilians, and those concerns about civilians drew anti-war protests in the United States and resistance to the invasion from U.N. member nations.

When coupled with the notion that Hussein was, like Hitler, a genocidal megalomaniac with a desire to take over the world and kill ethnic minorities while doing so, an invasion that would previously have appeared to only benefit America suddenly seemed to have the promise of benefitting Iraq. Suddenly, the waging of a war, a very questionable moral action, becomes the morally and ethically correct thing to do. Under utilitarianism, an action's moral value is determined by its impact on all people impacted by the action.

Americans, like most people, like to view themselves as morally and ethically upright; therefore, once the country had gone to war in Iraq, Americans were interested in hearing about the atrocities committed by Hussein against his people. Moreover, the constant comparisons between Hitler and Hussein, whether overt or by highlighting their similarities, helped appeal to those who believe in virtue ethics. For some people, the consequences of an action are not as important as the motivations for an action.

Therefore, some people would justify going to war in Iraq to free potential genocide victims, even if there were only 10,000 people targeted for genocide, but 100,000 people would die as a result of the war. This approach mirrors how the modern press has treated U.S. involvement in World War II. Many modern Americans believe that the U.S.

became involved in World War II as a way to end Hitler's genocidal policies, when the reality is that the United States was aware of Hitler's final solution and did not intervene in the war until Japan directly attacked the United States. However, as a society widely concerned with human rights, especially the rights of the oppressed, Americans would like to suggest that it is appropriate to go to war in order to end oppression of minority groups.

The reality is that we have not, as a country, ever entered into a war for such lofty or benevolent reasons. Furthermore, Hussein had been cast as the mastermind of all the evil in Iraq, so that his death, like Hitler's, should have reasonably led to the quick triumph of American forces in Iraq. That simply did not happen. However, once Americans were fully entrenched in Iraq, it became clear that Americans would not be able to provide a quick fix to Iraq's problems.

The reality is that the troops were not universally greeted as liberators and that they have still not been able to end the violence in Iraq. While many Iraqis welcomed U.S. intervention in Iraqi, thousands of other Iraqis resisted such intervention and fought against American troops. Even after the relatively rapid capture and execution of Hussein, who had been portrayed as the architect of all of the evil in Iraq, pockets of Iraqis continued to resist American occupation.

Moreover, the democratic elections, which were supposed to usher in a new era of freedom and stability to the Iraqis, were not totally successful. While the Iraqi people had incredible voter turnout, they did not seem certain how to rule their country as a democracy. Therefore, though the United States could claim that it had successfully spread democracy to Iraq, many people were beginning to question whether Iraqis could appreciate democracy.

The American attitude began to shift to an anti-Iraqi civilian pose, much like the Iraqis were friends who had rejected a carefully selected birthday present. Once Americans began to feel anger at Iraqi civilians, there was less press coverage about the atrocities experienced by those civilians because the Americans no longer cared. Not only had the Iraqis failed to greet the soldiers as liberators, but, with no formally organized army, all soldier deaths that did not result from friendly fire had to be attributed to the civilians in Iraq.

Suddenly, the very people that the Americans had gone to war to protect became the greatest danger to American soldiers in the area. More damning is the fact that Americans could no longer pretend to have the moral or ethical justification for continued occupation; the fact that they continued to occupy Iraq was directly linked to the number of civilian deaths in the country.

Nor could Americans express the fact that they were in Iraq to promote democracy and spread justice and fairness, when the results of democratic elections repeatedly showed that the Iraqi people wanted Americans out of Iraq. Of course, the greatest impact on how the press portrayed civilian life in Iraq was the fact that civilian life was not improving. Many educated Iraqis who had fled the country under Hussein's regime returned, hoping to help restore and rebuild their country.

Many of them have been killed, both in mass bombings and targeted torture-murders. (Damon). One of the problems with reporting on these killings is that they can be very difficult to define. Civilians are being killed in large numbers, but until the source of those killings can be determined, it is impossible to determine whether there is "a realistic prospect for conflict related violence and civil insecurity to fall toward zero levels." (Iraq Body Count).

To begin to understand the extent of the problem, the media needs to address the following questions about civilian deaths: "Who is killing them? How are they being killed? Who is being killed? How do current patterns compare to earlier periods?".