CONNECT/Eddie Holt: It was snowing in Iowa. Spindrift billowed across the highway. A convoy of US military vehicles - troop carriers mostly - trundled by. Older people, some alone, others in twos and threes, had come out of their houses to wave the troops farewell. Most of the oldies wore lumberjack coats, scarves and leathery hats with furry ear flaps. You could feel the cold through the TV.
"Give 'em hell," said a waving seventysomething. "Give 'em hell," chorused those of his neighbours within earshot. "Yeah, give 'em hell, give 'em hell," echoed a few more huddles, waving before the camera cut back to studio. Given their age, their attire and the humdrum sub-urbanity of the scene, these Iowan pensioners didn't look especially bloodthirsty. Clearly they believed they were performing a commendable and patriotic duty. Their waving and "encouragement" to troops heading for combat might have been from a Hollywood movie. It was the kind of scene that precedes the obligatory dockside weep-in, in which the stoical soldier hero and his resolute but tearful girlfriend hug, kiss and pledge undying love.
It was strongly generational too: the wistful old urging on the bold young. It depicted war as a virility game "played" by one generation after another. Presumably at least some of the older Iowans were US war veterans. Most of the men were old enough to have fought in the second World War and, if not, certainly in Korea.
The wavers, all white, looked like what Americans call "regular" people. They certainly appeared capable of recognisable warmth, decency and tenderness. Nonetheless, despite their age, they had not mellowed. "Give 'em hell," they said. "Give 'em hell." If an American-led attack on Iraq were about to place two roughly equal and gung-ho armies in the field, the pensioners' support, albeit regrettable, might be understandable. But there's not an equal scrap in prospect. The "'em" to whom "hell" is to be "given" will include thousands - maybe tens or even hundreds of thousands - of innocent Iraqi children and adult civilians.
A report by Medact - the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - on likely Iraqi casualties estimates civilian deaths between 7,200 and 86,000 and troop deaths between 3,200 and 80,000. Furthermore, a World Health Organisation report for the UN calculates that 500,000 people will require medical treatment.
In addition, the WHO report says 3.6 million people may be made homeless; three million will need food aid; two million face displacement inside Iraq and 900,000 will be forced to seek refuge abroad. Even at the lowest estimates, that is giving hell to any country. At a minimum, in deaths alone, it's about three times worse than the hell given to the US on September 11th, 2001. At worst, Iraqi deaths may amount to more than 50 times those of that day. Presumably if Saddam Hussein's Iraq is destroyed, the final death toll will be between these estimates. Nobody, of course, can be certain. Factor in hunger, homelessness, festering wounds, cholera and dysentery - from the destruction of water-treatment plants - and the Bush/ Blair policy is unspeakable.
Still, legions of Grandpa and Grandma Iowas will always say "Give 'em hell". Sure, there's always a natural, self-preserving if often atavistic instinct to support your own side. But Iraqis can't be fully human to people who casually wish such "hell" on them. You've got to consider the typical formation of the minds of these Grandpa and Grandma Iowas about the rest of the world.
For that, you must look at the American media. The US media ranges from superb to despicable. In between, the mass of it that "informs" and influences the mass of the people is extraordinarily partisan, provincial and propagandising. Television is still the most influential and least informing medium in America. It guarantees generations like the Iowan pensioners.
When you hear that huge numbers of Americans have no idea where Iraq is, that is not simply an indictment of American geography teaching. It indicts the entire culture. The ignorance flourishes because knowing where Iraq lies on the planet is not "useful" knowledge. It's hard to make a buck with that stuff. It's for specialists, fogeys and maybe even the work-shy.
That is the dark side of the American system which has also produced wonderful advances in areas such as technology, medicine and local democracy. Average Americans know about other things, including computers. They also know more about economics, financial services, the stock market - things to do with money - than most other average citizens.
But the irony is dark indeed. The country which is the engine of globalisation retains a dangerously large proportion of inward-looking people who resist seeing the world outside the US as an equal. Then again, too many people living at the heart of empires have always thought likewise.
An American-led attack on Iraq seems unavoidable now and propaganda to "justify" it will intensify. Remember the New York PR outfit Hill & Knowlton that produced a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, "Nayirah", in 1990. She told us, tearfully, that Iraqi soldiers dumped Kuwaiti babies from incubators and left them to die on the floor. It enabled Daddy Bush to attack.
Only after the Iraqis had been given "hell", did we learn that "Nayirah" was the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the US. No witnesses ever verified her account. As a result, Amnesty International retracted its report on human rights violations by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait. Expect the 2003 propaganda to crank up to similar levels.
After all, it's easier to "give 'em hell" when voters are convinced they're a shower of low-life, terrorist thugs. And oh . . . you also need plenty of heating oil when it's snowing in Iowa.