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CNN Live At Daybreak

Campaign in Afghanistan also a Propaganda War; Interview with Jef McAllister

Aired October 30, 2001 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Very good, well, President Bush has warned that the war on terrorism would not be quick or easy. Less than one month into the strikes, news of civilian deaths, there already is support waning for -- among some people -- for the military campaign.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: That's right and CNN's Margaret Lowrie reports this morning, a new frontline may be emerging. This one, in the Propaganda War.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARGARET LOWRIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The very nature of this war, so far, mostly out of camera range with only the unsubstantiated claims of the Taliban makes it easier to measure tragedy than achievement.

HUGO YOUNG, WRITER, THE GUARDIAN: The bombing campaign is perceived by most people to be unsuccessful largely because the only stories we hear these days are about civilians getting killed. We hear nothing at all about how successful the campaign has been elsewhere.

LOWRIE: And that has fed voices in Parliament, in the newspapers. Support is still firm for the campaign to stop Osama bin Laden and put an end to terror, but some here fear that fighting in Afghanistan might destabilize other countries, widening the conflict with unpredictable consequences.

YOUNG: More voices are being heard (A), questioning the tactics -- the military operations are going on, the bombing, and also sort of behind that wondering whether the issue isn't far more complicated than this military campaign makes it appear.

LOWRIE: British officials, however, point to Kosovo, a fierce bombing campaign that took more than two months to dislodge the Serbs. Early on some of the British press impatient for results doubted the efficacy of the campaign only to change their tune when the Serbs did withdraw, plus polls show the British public still supports the government's role in this campaign.

GEOFF HOON, BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY: I actually think people out there in the country are far more aware of the impact of the events of the 11th of September than perhaps some people who write in newspapers are.

LOWRIE: And even considering the opposition, the government acknowledges it's all part of a democratic process.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: There are voices always from all sides who say that certain things are wrong. However, the overwhelming majority of people in Parliament, a huge majority -- overwhelming majority of the British people, supports this action.

LOWRIE: But that's a sign the government is now involved in a campaign of both bombs and words. Leaders here know they need to engage rhetorically to sustain public support during a war that promises to be long and occasionally unsuccessful.

Margaret Lowrie, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: So what do the U.S. and Great Britain have to do to swing public opinion in their favor? Well joining this morning with some answers, we hope, is "Time Magazine's" London Bureau Chief Jef McAllister. Jef, good to see you again. How are you?

JEF MCALLISTER, TIME MAGAZINE: Good morning Leon.

HARRIS: Well let's begin with from your perspective what you see is -- as the tactics that are being taken right now by the U.S. and the U.K. What do you make of what you've seen so far? Any differences here or any particular successes or failures?

MCALLISTER: Well obviously Tony Blair is concerned here that support perhaps is waning. He gave indications over the weekend that he was going to give a speech today. It's actually in a few hours -- where he'll try to buck up public opinion here. There was a poll overnight showing that support, which was 74 percent for the war two and a half weeks ago, is now at 62 percent.

So he's trying to remind people of why we're in the fight -- try to remind of the emotional significance essentially of September 11th. And then there's also trying to attract the Arab public. There's a new Islamic media unit set up in Downing Street -- there are -- with Arabic speaking officials who go on camera to Al Jazeera and other Arabic outlets, trying to build up support there.

He's been traveling a lot. I think he's going to be traveling some more, trying to bring the message to the Arab world that this is not a fight against Islam, but it's a fight against terror.

HARRIS: Yes we've been hearing that said over and over again, but one thing we can't seem to get away from Jef is the fact that, you know, much of the opinion in the Muslim world and around the world in other regions as well, is tied to world opinion of the U.S. and in many cases, that opinion is being shaped in Mosques and in schools. Now that's a very, very potent mix there -- mixing religion with opinion like that. What do you think is actually the way to go as far as around the world trying to counteract that sort of potent mix there?

MCALLISTER: Well in a way you can't. I mean this is the kind of thing that you -- the kind of battle that takes years and maybe decades to win. There's probably no way to go to -- inside an Islamist jihadist Mosque and say really Osama bin Laden is a bad guy. What I think you need to do, however, I mean I think this is both true for Arab publics -- moderate Arab publics and for European and American publicists -- in fact you have to win something.

The hard part is, as your report just said, you have a lot of bad pictures of bombs that have gone wrong. You had the story over the weekend of Abdul Haq who was assassinated by the Taliban and because this is essentially an intelligence war -- a long-term war, there aren't very many obvious big victories that are even possible to win. For instance, there have been all these comments that there is a warning for a possible attack in the next week in the United States.

If this attack does not happen, is that a victory for the government? Does that make everyone think Bush is doing a great job or just does it make them feel slightly uneasy?

HARRIS: Interesting -- so nothing happening -- nothing negative happening could actually be a bad thing in that case. Well let me ask you about that because what strikes me as odd is to see this erosion of public support you talked about just a moment ago there in Great Britain.

We're also hearing some negative comments coming in the U.S. as well, and it's hard to imagine that after only a couple of weeks here of real heavy action there on the ground, you could see an erosion this far when we haven't seen any coalition casualties at all, and that was the big concern in the last couple of conflicts that the U.S. and Great Britain and the world coalition have been involved in.

What -- does that say more about people -- the publics and their lack of stamina or does it say more about the campaign that's actually been waged propaganda wise?

MCALLISTER: Well of course I suppose if the public support continued to erode, we might have some lack of support in the coalition. I think it really is a -- an almost inevitable consequence of the way wars are fought nowadays, in a 24-hour news cycle when you have to have pictures of things and it's difficult to get pictures of good things, even if you have a picture of a bombed out cave or a picture of a bombed out Taliban camp or al Qaeda camp. What does that show?

Does that make everybody feel wonderful? This did happen in Kosovo. It also happened in the Gulf War. In six months essentially it took the U.S. and other coalition partners to build up to the big fight -- there was lots of worry. Fifteen thousand American causalities were predicted, eruption on the Arab street, tremendous difficulties in the coalition. One of these things, in fact, materialized also in Kosovo. And I think that's what the governments are essentially counting on. They tell the public there's going to be a long war. They keep reminding people it's going to be a long war and they just hope that sooner or later they get some successes that which will help. Otherwise they're just going to have to keep at it.

HARRIS: Interesting -- a very interesting picture here. A picture being worth more than a 1,000 words in these cases. Jef McAllister you very much and we hope to talk with you later on down the road. Take care.

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