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Site Update April 24, 2003
By Pamela Harris

War Anger

Gloria LaBounty
Sun Chronicle Staff

When Americans talk about the current fighting over Iraq, they could be talking about the troops, or the folks here at home. Emotions are running so high that people are battling each other over their views on the war, and over the way those views are expressed. Look no farther than Wheaton College in Norton, where students opposed to the war displayed an American flag upside down. As a result, they were harassed with obscenities, vandalism, death
threats and rock-throwing, the kind of reaction that one student labeled as terrorism at a time when the country is fighting exactly that. In Attleboro, more than a dozen people holding weekly peace vigils have been subjected to shouts, insults, rudeness and crude gestures by passers-by. Yet the protesters and now a new group of demonstrators in favor of the war effort have made it a point of being respectful of each other, and have avoided confrontations.

Clashes have erupted all over the country between war opponents and supporters during demonstrations in large cities, and much closer to home during everyday contacts with family, friends and co-workers. Some Americans even avoid bringing up the war over the dinner table, at the water cooler or during the church coffee hour because they know an argument could easily break out. The New York Times recently called it a ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ approach in dealing with the war in social situations.

Denise Achin of North Attleboro, who opposes the war, said some people tend to back off from a discussion of Iraq when they are among people who do not feel the same as they do, and who may view them as not supporting their country. ‘‘It irks me that people protesting the war are told they are unpatriotic and not supporting the troops,’’ Achin said.

Kathy Trowbridge of North Attleboro, who said she is neither for nor against the war but supports the president and the troops, said a discussion of the war is not one that people can have lightly. ‘‘Feelings are running high,’’ she said. ‘‘Emotions are running high. It is not a two-minute conversation.’’

Where does all this anger come from? Some experts say a war is such serious business that it warrants this kind of emotion. ‘‘The level of rhetoric strikes me as normal,’’ said Mark Graber, professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland and an expert in civil liberties. ‘‘During a war, opponents of the war express anger.’’

Daniel Monti, professor and associate chairman of the sociology department at Boston University, said people should feel strongly about an issue as important as a war. He is not troubled by the intensity of the dialogue, even when it becomes raucous, painful and insulting. Democracy that is working well is not quiet, he said. ‘‘It’s a by-product of who we are as a people,’’ Monti said. ‘‘Democracy is sloppy. It is both part of our birthright and part of our curse. It’s a wonderful curse.’’

Some observers see Sept. 11 at the root of the emotion, and at the root of American fears and insecurity. ‘‘The Twin Towers were traumatizing to all of us,’’ said Dennis Sandole, professor of conflict resolutions and international relations at George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis
and Resolution in Virginia. The Bush administration, he said, has successfully created an emotional connection between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein even though there is no factual link. ‘‘For many Americans, the war against Iraq is part of the war against terrorists, even though Saddam Hussein is a secular Arab nationalist and appears to have no connection to al-Qaida,’’ Sandole said. ‘‘They need a sense of closure for Sept. 11, and they get angry at those who don’t see the connection. They get mad because they can’t understand how any fellow American could be against the war on terror.’’ Opponents of the war, on the other hand, see the war in Iraq as expanding the likelihood of terrorism and attacks, he said, mainly because of the anger being generated in the Arab world, including countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia that have been major U.S. allies. Americans in favor of the war don’t see that, Sandole said, and if more terrorism occurs, they will see it as a justification for going into Iraq. ‘‘People do not see what they see,’’ he said. ‘‘They see what they feel.’’

Psychology professor Elizabeth Englander of Bridgewater State College said this confusion of views is part of the problem with this war. "The perception of things is not very concrete,’’ Englander said. Unlike World War II when the threat was clear and real, this war is full of abstracts, she said. ‘‘When the threat is vague, abstract and open to interpretation, there is a lot of dissension,’’ she said. ‘‘People are taking the information, and interpreting it differently.’’ The legacy of Vietnam has also played a key role in American emotions, experts say. Englander said that war and the way its veterans were treated are prompting the link between supporting the troops and supporting the war. ‘‘There’s a perception that you can’t support the troops and think that the war is unjust,’’ she said.

Vietnam veteran Neil McKenna of North Attleboro, who counsels veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, said opposition to the war can be very troubling for the men and women who fought in Southeast Asia. ‘‘The protests ring strongly of the protests of the Vietnam War,’’ McKenna said. ‘‘They have triggered a lot of that pain.’’

Sandole said for veterans of any war, protests are personal because they are seen as a sign of disrespect for them, and for what they did. ‘‘Everything they have done is called into question,’’ he said. Yet he said people can be very supportive and appreciative of the military and still not agree with a particular war.

Attleboro resident Irene Davey, a World War II veteran of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps who at 95 is feisty in her opposition to the war, is angered by accusations that people who don’t support this war are not patriotic. ‘‘Don’t tell me I don’t love my country,’’ Davey said. ‘‘God, I love it. It’s the greatest country in the world.’’ Attleboro resident Craig Chapman, who returned two weeks ago from a tour of duty in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard, said war protests present a Catch-22. ‘‘The mere fact that they can protest is because of the soldiers,’’ he said. He believes in the necessity for this war, yet believes that people can oppose it and still support the troops. Soldiers now fighting in the Middle East will not be demoralized by it, he said, because they expect to hear differences of opinion coming out of their country. They also know that it’s because of them that these opinions can be expressed, Chapman said.

Darlene Boroviak, a professor of political science at a Wheaton College in Norton and a member of the college’s non-violent coordinating committee, said the name-calling that has emerged over this war is a throwback to the Vietnam era. ‘‘War time seems to make people feel that they can use patriotism as a stick,’’ Boroviak said. ‘‘It’s unfair to criticize people as being unpatriotic. They have the right to express different viewpoints.’’ That connection with patriotism during the Vietnam War, she said, was enhanced by the fact that some of the protesters were young people who didn’t want to be drafted, and who were therefore accused of being unpatriotic. Yet some of the dissent over this war, Boroviak said, is due to the U.S. decision to go in on its own, without the support of other allies and of the United Nations. That has created anger both at home, she said, and in other countries where people may now regard the U.S. as a bully that wants to shape the world in its own way.

President Bush also has a with-us-or-against-us way of viewing the world, and Boroviak said that can set the stage for confrontation between people who don’t view the world the same way. Some experts say there has been a notable lack of reasoned, intelligent debate in the country over this war, and that factor, added to the natural tendency to rally around the country at a time of war, has added to the anger towards those who disagree.

Sandole of George Mason University places part of the blame with the Democrats, who he said ‘‘rolled over’’ when they should have raised their voices. ‘‘Maybe if there had been a debate in Congress, we would all debate the war,’’ he said.

Graber of the University of Maryland said Democrats are remaining quiet because they are concerned about reelection. He calls their performance ``embarrassing.’’

The American broadcast media, an obvious forum for discussion, has been noticeably one-sided in favor of the war, experts say. That may be due more to economics than patriotism as they keep an eye on ratings and revenue in a country that mostly supports the war.

Journalism professor Manny Paraschos of Emerson College in Boston, co-publisher of the magazine ‘‘Media Ethics,’’ said the American media overall has been supportive, and sometimes enthusiastically supportive, of this war.‘‘I have never seen so much patriotic coverage,’’ he said. ‘‘The voices of dissent are not welcome,’’ he said, both as sources in interviews, and in the form of ads against the war that some media outlets have turned down. One reason, he said, is that these outlets now, more than ever, are owned by fewer entities, including some that have ties to conservative groups, and that makes them more vulnerable to financial and public pressures. ‘‘They are locked into a situation where they can’t go against public sentiment,’’ he said. Added to that, he said, is the normal inclination to see things as the government does, especially on foreign policy which is so difficult to understand. Initially, he said, war protesters were being completely ignored, but their numbers grew to such a degree that they had to be covered. Last week’s rally in Boston drew 25,000 people, he said, the largest demonstration since the Vietnam War. The one-sided coverage is particularly noticeable on the national level, he said, and talk radio in particular is dominated by conservative voices, and conservative owners.

Graber of the University of Maryland said the emphasis on having retired generals analyze every troop movement provides mostly a discussion of strategy rather than of issues, and reports from ‘‘embedded’’ journalists makes the war seem like a docu-drama. He would prefer to hear discussions by experts on the Middle East focusing on issues like the impact of the war on surrounding countries, but that is happening only limitedly, on outlets like
C-SPAN and National Public Radio.

Boroviak at Wheaton College said there is also a tendency today in both the broadcast and print media to tell complex stories as simply as possible, through brief reports or shorter stories. That in turn discourages the exploration of complex ideas, she said. Englander at Bridgewater State said the coverage of the war has lacked depth. For instance, she said, no one has tried to show the distinction between support for the troops and support for the war. No one, she said, is talking about the fact that Bush is cutting benefits for veterans at a time when he is sending troops into battle. ‘‘Obvious issues are being totally ignored,’’ she said.

But not everyone sees the media as biased toward the war and the Bush administration. Kevin Donovan of North Attleboro, a veteran of the Persian Gulf war and Somalia and now a high school teacher of American and military history, thinks the media coverage has been very liberal, and very slanted.‘‘If you listen to the media, you would think we are losing the war,’’ he said.

Then there are those like Trowbridge of North Attleboro, who said that in addition to those who are for the war and those who are against it, there is another group of people who are not on either side. ‘‘There just doesn’t seem to be any other way,’’ she said of her view of the war. ‘‘Now that there is a war, we owe it to ourselves to support the president. We live in a society that is organized by rules and structure. How can we not support our president?’’ Yet people need to understand each other’s point of view, she said. ‘‘We need to learn how to get along with each other,’’ Trowbridge said. ‘‘That will not happen if we do not listen to different sides. We don’t have to agree. We don’t have to change our minds. We are obligated to listen.’’