CNN EFFECT IN SOMALIA: DOES NEWS MEDIA DRIVE PRESIDENTIAL CRISIS RHETORIC?
BY
AUSTIN A ARIANS
A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
MASTERS OF ARTS
Liberal Arts Studies
December 2019
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Approved By:
Allan Louden, Ph.D., Advisor
Anthony Parent, Ph.D., Chair
Michael Hazen, Ph.D.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Louden for serving as my advisor on this thesis.
His guidance, article suggestions, and editing assistance were greatly appreciated.
I would also like to thank Dr. Parent and Dr. Hazen for serving on the defense committee. I chose my topic based on courses I took with them that I thoroughly enjoyed.
ii Table of Contents
Abstract iv
Literature Review 2
Crisis Rhetoric: Theoretical Foundation 2
President Obama’s Healthcare Initiative 7
Crisis Rhetoric in the Presidency 12
News Media Framing of Crisis Events 17
The CNN Effect 19
Research Question 22
Background on Somalia 23
Black Hawk Down: Brief Walkthrough of Events 26
Study Object: The Media 40
The Rhetoric 43
Findings 55
Future Rhetoric and Foreign Policy 59
Conclusion 65
Bibliography 66
Curriculum Vitae 69
iii Abstract
In my thesis I will discuss how news media correlates with presidential rhetoric in crisis situations. More closely, I will be looking at the crisis in Somalia on October 3rd and 4th 1993, along with President Bush’s and Clinton’s rhetoric before, during and after the crisis.
iv Austin Arians
CNN Effect in Somalia: Does News Media Drive Presidential Crisis
Rhetoric?
1 Literature Review
Crisis Rhetoric: Theoretical Foundation
Uncertainty and change permeate human history. Presidents as with others, innately face the task of making sense of the world in which citizens reside. The uses for crisis rhetoric often come into play during scandal or emergency. Crisis rhetoric is often used as a way to sway public perception of a
President, company or individual. For my thesis, I will be looking at image repair in terms of United States foreign affairs, mainly through presidential crisis rhetoric.
According to William L. Benoit in his article Image Repair Discourse and
Crisis Communication, “Image is essential to organizations (i.e., corporations, government bodies, non-profit groups) as well as individuals” (Benoit, “Image
Repair” 177). Benoit discusses how an image can relate with public relations, because without a good standing image, public perception of you or your organization is going to be unfavorable. The difference from a person to an organization, in terms of crisis rhetoric, is how strategies are put together differently or rolled out with specific configurations to better suit situations.
Although I will not be covering an individual’s image, the difference between an organization and an individual lie with the popularity. A well-known actor or actress may need to follow similar image restoration theories that are followed by well-known companies, as the repercussions can be similar. If an actor or actress does not have a good standing image, they may not get jobs, hence losing
2 money. The same goes for companies, as a bad standing image may push customers and potential clients to its competitors.
Benoit identifies key components to image discourse theory. Benoit states,
“an attack has two components: 1. The accused is held responsible for an action.
2. That act is considered offensive” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 178).” It is only when that organization is believed to be in the wrong that image restoration discourse theory should be administered.
Benoit’s article on image restoration discourse discusses a few key details that organizations should think about when implementing image repair discourse.
First, he talks about the audience (or audiences) that an organization must directly focus on, the audience that ultimately disapproves of the action and holds the organization accountable with a negative sanction. Second, he argues that perceptions are more important than reality. He backs this statement by saying,
“the important point is not whether the business in fact is responsible for the offensive act, but whether the organization is thought to be responsible for it by the relevant audience” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 178).
Although it is on occasion, a government may attempt to repair of their national image through crisis management, it has been done before. Saudi
Arabia devised a whole campaign in order to repair their image after the events of September 11th, 2001. Saudi Arabia started the campaign because that Saudi
Arabia was home to fifteen of the nineteen hijackers while over 100 Saudi citizens made up the bulk of the Afghanistan war prisoners that were detained at
3 the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay (Zhang & Benoit 161).
Benoit’s then discusses the message options available to organizations.
Five broad image repair strategies that respond to such threats are: denial, evasion of responsibility, reduction of offensiveness, corrective action and mortification. Benoit provides examples to illustrate the theory. Although all five are important to the theory of image repair discourse, I will cover the ones that appear later all in this paper.
Denial
Denial, according to Benoit, is where “a firm may deny that the act occurred, that the firm performed the act, or that the act was harmful to anyone”
(Benoit, “Image Repair” 179). Denial has two variants. For example Benoit Pepsi accused Coke of gathering other accounts to pay higher prices, allowing Coke to subsidize prices for their largest customer, McDonalds. Coke denied such claims saying price increases were universally applied across the board and that there were no exceptions. Using the denial tactic allowed organizations to refute both what had happened and it’s harmful effects.
Another form of denial, according to Benoit, is shifting the blame. His example was the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Chair of Exxon stated that after the spill, he could not get authorization from the state or the coast guard to start the process. Since they are not to blame for being delayed, their image should not be hurt. (Benoit, “Image Repair” 179-180)
Evasion of Responsibility
4 Benoit defines evasion of responsibility as “a firm can say its act was merely a response to another’s offensive act, and that the behavior can be seen as a reasonable reaction to that provocation.” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 180)
Benoit suggests that Evasion of Responsibility has four variations. In the first version, Benoit states that a company/government/persons behavior is in response to a different party’s actions. For example, an organization may have some negatively viewed behavior due to a law passing. Basically, they are saying if a law had not been passed, the behavior would not have happened.
Second, Benoit discussed defeasibility. This tactic suggests an organization does not have certain information; therefore, they cannot be held accountable. The example used by Benoit is if a business manager missed a meeting because he had not been informed it was moved up a day. If the information was, in fact, not received, his “not knowing” should be excused.
The third form of evasion of responsibility would be that the act was an accident. The organization tries to persuade the audience that the act was an accident, and if successful, the organization should be held less accountable.
Last, would be an organization stating that they were looking out for the best interest of everyone involved through their act or behavior. Organizations must explain to audiences that though the behavior or act was considered negative, they were just looking out for all involved. (Benoit, “Image Repair” 180)
Reduction of Offensiveness
Benoit argues in his article, “a company that is accused of wrongful
5 actions can also try to reduce the perceived offensiveness of that act” (Benoit,
“Image Repair” 180). He states there are six different versions of reducing offensiveness, but I will focus on the three that can be argued later.
Bolstering is the first way to reduce offensiveness. According to Benoit, may be used by a party “to strengthen the audience’s positive feelings toward itself, in order to offset the negative feelings connected with the wrongful act”
(Benoit, “Image Repair” 180). If the audience acquires these positive feelings, it should offset most damage done to a reputation.
The second way to reduce offensiveness, according to Benoit is through minimization. A party would state that the wrongful act is not actually as bad as it seems. Benoit uses an example in his article in which a company that may test products on animals may argue that the benefits from research done to the animals may outweigh the harm done to those animals (Benoit, “Image Repair”
181).
The last form of reducing offensiveness that I will cover is transcendence.
Transcendence, according to Benoit, is when a party “attempts to place the act in a more favorable context
Corrective Action
Corrective action, according to Benoit, is when an organization tries to restore their image by promising to correct the wrong behavior or act. This action would not only correct the previous act or behavior, which is seen negatively by audiences, but also take steps necessary to prevent these actions from ever
6 happening again. (Benoit, “Image Repair” 181)
Compensation
According to Benoit, “compensation is the final form of reducing offensiveness. If it is acceptable to the victim, the firm’s image should be improved.” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 181) Benoit uses an example, “if disabled people were denied admittance to a movie theater. An official later apologized and offered them free passes to a future movie to help compensate them for this offensive act.” (Benoit, “Image Repair” 181)
President Obama’s Healthcare Initiative
Benoit also looks at each use of image repair discourse in presidential rhetoric in an article titled “President Barack Obama’s Image Repair on
HealthCare.gov.” In this article, Benoit discusses how President Obama used image repair discourse to help get his approval rating up.
President Barack Obama wanted to make healthcare affordable to all. His healthcare initiative went live on October 1st, 2013, however there were many problems. President Obama promised people if they liked their current health care plan, they would be allowed to keep it. However, that was not the case, as people began getting cancelation notices from their insurance companies.
A quotation from Benoit’s article shows how this insurance initiative affected President Obama’s image, “The threat to the Presidents image hinged on two key accusations: (1) the Healthcare.gov webpage was not working, and
(2) Obama promised that people could keep their current health care plan if they
7 liked” (Benoit 3). We are able to see how false promises and a webpage filled with glitches and crashes may have negatively affected President Obama’s image (Benoit, “President Barack” 3).
Republicans wasted little time trying to damage President Obama’s image.
The Chair of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus said, “We now know the president’s repeated promises that Americans could keep their insurance plans if they liked them was a blatant lie” (Alpert 3).
Benoit’s evaluation of President Barack Obama’s image repair discourse in his interview with Chuck Todd on NBC News and November 14th news conference show us some of these tactics in use. Benoit states “Obama’s image repair discourse in his interview with Chuck Todd and his press conference employed six strategies – mortification, corrective action, minimization, defeasibility, bolstering, and transcendence…” (Benoit, “President Barack” 7). He goes into depth on each, backing up his points with President Obama’s words in his interview with Chuck Todd, but also his press conference on his health care initiative, which shows us how image repair discourse is used from a presidential standpoint.
Mortification
Benoit discusses how President Obama acknowledges his responsibility for problems that occurred with the health care initiative. Benoit quoted many times from Obama’s press conference and news interview to prove his point, especially when he quoted the following, “Obama expressed his dismay about
8 the troubled webpage: ‘I’m not happy about the fact that the rollout has been, you know, wrought with a whole range of problems that I’ve been deeply concerned about’” (Benoit, “President Barack” 8). Another evidentiary piece is when
President Obama say, “This website has not worked… [and] I take responsibility of that” (Obama, “Watch Interview” 3). These admissions show how President
Obama took responsibility for these mistakes. Benoit states how mortification was used and designed to help attitudes change towards him, “His defense worked to create new beliefs (he felt dismay and regret about what happened, he accepted responsibility for these problems) designed to improve the audience’s attitudes toward him” (Benoit, “President Barack” 8)
Corrective Action
Benoit shows us again how President Obama displayed corrective action in his news conference and interview. Benoit used the following quotation from
President Obama’s news conference, “Having accepted responsibility for these problems, Obama’s defense proposed corrective action to improve the situation.
He declared that ‘problem number one [is] making sure that the website works the ways it’s supposed to’” and “’[W]e’re working 24/7 to get it working for the vast majority of Americans in a smooth, consistent way’” (Benoit, “President
Barack” 9). Benoit argues in this section how President Obama “pledged to improve the webpage” which shows us a corrective action approach (Benoit,
“President Barack” 9).
He also discussed the issues with many Americans getting cancellation
9 notices. President Obama stated in his news conference that they would “identify the problems that we’ve got, make sure that we’re fixing them, whether it’s a website, whether it is making sure that folks who got these cancelation notices get help, we’re just going to keep on chipping away at this until the job is done”
(Obama, “Full Transcript” 9-10). These show how President Obama used corrective action to try to increase public perception of his image.
Minimization
Minimization attempts to convince people that the act is less serious than what is being claimed. Benoit argues that President Obama used minimization in two ways. He uses two quotations from President Obama that illustrate the tactic.
The first quote showed how few people were affected when he states, “a small percentage of people,” “about 5% of the population” (Obama, “Watch Interview”
3).
Benoit also explains how President Obama attempts to minimize problems through reducing expectations of his performance. Benoit quotes President
Obama’s following statement from his news conference, “it is not possible for me to guarantee that a hundred percent of the people and hundred percent of the time going on this website will have a perfectly seamless, smooth experience”
(Obama, “Full Transcript” 19). This minimizes the blame put directly on President
Obama. Benoit follows that quote with another quote from the same news conference when President Obama states, “I am not a perfect man and I will not be a perfect president, but Ill wake up every single day working as hard as I can
10 on behalf of Americans out there from every walk of life” (Obama, “Full
Transcript” 25). Benoit is showing us that President Obama, although he is taking responsibility for the issues, blame is not solely his.
Defeasibility
Benoit tells us that defeasibility is where lack of information or ability is claimed. He then shows us how President Obama displayed defeasibility in his interview and news conference. Benoit uses the following quotation to show
Obama’s use of defeasibility, “a system that will offer real financial security and peace of mind to millions of Americans … is a complex process. There are all kinds of challenges. I’m sure there will be additional challenges that come up”
(Obama, “Full Transcript” 7). Benoit argues that President Obama had to explain that the webpage was very complex, and that overcoming these issues is a very difficult thing to do. President Obama stated even though it was complex, he used corrective action to show us his desire to fix these issues.
Bolstering
President Obama used bolstering as a strategy to talk up the website even though Healthcare.gov had problems. Benoit displays Obama’s use of bolstering in his news conference with the following quotation; “in just one month, despite all the problems that we’ve seen with the website, more than 500,000 Americans could know the security of health care by January 1st, many of them for the first time in their lives” (Obama, “Full Transcript” 4). This quote shows us that even though the website is having many frustrating issues, it still has some good
11 things happening also with some people having health insurance in the first time in their lives.
Transcendence
Benoit shows how President Obama used transcendence in his news conference with a couple instances. Benoit relates how President Obama used transcendence with a statistic that stressed the amount of people who were not able to gain access to healthcare before the Affordable Care Act; “There are still
40 million Americans who don’t have health insurance at all. I’m not going to walk away from 40 million people who have the chance to get health insurance for the first time” (Obama, “Full Transcript” 7). We see how President Obama talks about the people who could be able to get access to health insurance for the first time, which leaves people with the thought that although there are issues with
Healthcare.gov, the issue of people without access to health insurance is far greater.
Crisis Rhetoric in the Presidency
Crisis for Presidents are a bit different than they are for companies.
Bonnie Dow argues that exigence is a key factor in presidential crisis rhetoric.
Often, crisis rhetoric for Presidents involves the lives of American’s that are defending the United States. Dow maintains,
Crisis situations create similar needs, especially those that involve the
deaths of Americans. The majority of the audience is not personally
involved, but they still feel a sense of confusion, a need to understand the
12 meaning of the event for the nation as a whole and to know how the nation
will proceed. (Dow 297)
This notion that we, as a nation, need to subdue any confusion or understand the meaning of an event is behind crisis rhetoric, argues Dow. According to Dow, the need for understanding, elicits strategies as Dow summarizes,
In response to this need, Presidential discourse reacting to such events
reveals strategies that 1) dissociate the nation from responsibility for the
crisis, 2) place the event within a value-laden context of similar situations,
and 3) urge perseverance in present policy rather than changes in policy.
(Dow 297)
Dow brings up valuable points about how the confusion and need for understanding plays into crisis rhetoric by demanding the President associate previous events, while also giving examples of previous crisis examples and how the policy helped the United States get through the tough times of the past.
Another point introduced by Dow is the need to associate a crisis with previous events to show that the Americans killed were innocent victims that were attacked by evil. Dow uses two of President Ronald Reagan’s crisis speeches to prove her point that relating the attack to previous events of crisis shows Americans killed were innocent and the attacking forces as evil. Dow discusses how Reagan made this happen with the following,
By connecting current events with past incidents of perceived irrational
and indefensible Soviet violence, Reagan could place the KAL incident
13 within that pattern and make it understandable for the audience. Thus, the
attack was not a specific response to American character or actions but
simply another manifestation of the evil character of the Soviets. (Dow
298)
This excerpt from Dows article discusses how this shapes the beliefs towards the
“evil Soviets”. This was something, Dow argues, that helped to reassure that this was just the way the Soviets were and this was almost to be expected.
The theoretical frame provided by Dow emphasizes dissimilarity between the two nations. She states, “The contrast between the character of the two nations was clear: the Soviets were brutal, inhumane, and immoral, while the
United States was civilized, honorable, and interested in justice rather than vengeance” (Dow 299). This contrast shows how crisis rhetoric in the presidency is often presented in a way to make the United States, look good, while making the enemy or attacking nation, look evil.
Denise Bostdorff also observes how crisis promotion and management is an important factor that plays into crisis rhetoric. The example used by Bostdorff was on October 23, 1983, a terrorist driving a truck that was packed with explosives drove into a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebenon. The explosion left over two hundred Americans dead and many injured (Bostdorff 737). Later that week the United States invaded a small Caribbean island, Grenada, in order to save hundreds of American Students.
Bostdorff argues that Reagan’s rhetoric on Grenada is a good example of
14 crisis promotion and management. She observes,
To “promote” a crisis, commanders in chief advance a claim of crisis or
assert that a crisis exists. The “management” of crisis occurs when
Presidents attempt to persuade publics to attach desired meanings to an
event and to accept their resolution of the crisis event as the most
appropriate one. (Bostdorff 737)
This quotation illustrates that the Grenada “invasion” was as presented a crisis, which required America to step in immediacy “saving” American medical students who were on the island. Reagan’s management for this crisis was in his persuasion to the public, that the action took, in this case invading Grenada, was the correct action to take. Bostdorff states many times the American medical students said how thankful they were to have been rescued, which plays into how Reagan tried to persuade the public into accepting that invading Grenada was the correct action.
Bostdorff states there are four rhetorical characteristics of crisis promotion and management: personification, urgent direction, documentation, and intervention.
Personification
The personification of the enemy is one of the most important tasks in crisis rhetoric. Bostdorff backs this up when she states, “First, there must be an enemy often a condensation symbol of evil, such as Racism or Communism; this promotes U.S. unity through the rejection of a shared object of hatred” (Bostdorff
15 741). Next, Bostdorff tells us how the enemy is portrayed as threatening victims, which could be Americans or allies, people the United States military needs to protect (Bostdorff 741).
The last thing important to the personification of the enemy discussed by
Bostdorff, would be where the event takes place. The farther away, and less known it is taking place in, the better. This makes information released to media much easier to control through framing. The government can frame the situation however they please, and audiences may blindly follow due to how little is known.
Urgent Direction
An expressed sense of urgency is another key in the characteristics of crisis promotion and management. The President’s urgency by saying “if we do not act now, it may be too late” allows a President to bypass congress, while also maintaining a sense of unity amongst the nation. The lack of time to assess if this is the right thing to do, gives a sense of unity to stop the evil that is out there, making actions that may be taken or have been taken as the right thing to do.
Documentation
Documentation is basically proof that enemy is committing evil acts, or about to commit evil acts. According to Bostdorff, documentation serves two functions. “First, it supports Presidential assertions that an enemy exists and that the need for action is urgent. (Bostdorff 742) and “Second, such documentation justifies action after the crisis has been resolved, when public criticism is more
16 likely” (Bostdorff 742). This documentation is important due to the fact that it allows a President to back up, with evidence, reasons for which the United States acted on the evil acts.
Intervention
The final characteristic that Bostdorff discusses is intervention. According to Bostdorff, “Through intervention, the President details military mobilization, emphasizing the positive and de-emphasizing or totally ignoring the negative”
(Bostdorff 743). This underscoring gives the nation a sort of reassurance that the leader of our nation is in control and actions took against evil, were a good call.
These four characteristics are key components of crisis promotion and management. Bostdorff gives us these characteristics, which she backs up with examples from Reagan’s speeches on the invasion of Grenada.
News Media Framing of Crisis Events
The way people gather information is constantly changing with technology.
News and information that is received today, is vastly different from the way people received news and information 20 years ago. Since the internet’s advent, people have had a way to access any information they choose at any given point in time.
Dobernig, Lobinger and Wetzstein argue the number of pictures that people see in news media and mass media communication has increased significantly (Dobernig et al. 89). The reason for this increase in images people see in news media and mass mediated communication is in part a function of
17 how limited our time is, making a need for news reports to be easily available and receivable. This is something that visual communication is more likely to accomplish than written language alone (Dobernig et al. 89).
According to Dobernig et al. (89), “In news reporting about war, military conflicts and crisis, images fulfill substantial roles as generators of attention and emotions, evidence, and legitimization.” Pictures used in news media and mass media communication, they argue, carries greater emotion, evidence, and legitimization.
Although pictures can be very powerful for audiences, Dobernig et al., state pictures also can shape audience’s views. This is an important notion, as pictures can often be misleading or truncate the whole event. It would be like picking four chapters out of a book to read; you do not get the whole story. Since everything people see and read about an event are primarily mediated, images people see hold a power to determine the media audience’s ideas of reality
(Dobernig et al. 90). This just goes to show that people cannot always base our sense of what is actually going on by the images they consume.
The last key to visuals in news media is that visuals have emotional and attitudinal effects that could be associated with positively shaping public perceptions and understanding of news events (Dobernig et al. 92). Dobernig et al. (91) contend that pictures not only affect and initiate people’s information processing but also determine which news aspects the audience perceives and which they do not, thereby framing the evaluation of social and political events.
18 Hyo J. Kim and Glen T. Cameron argue that the framing of a crisis stimulates a persons emotions. Entman states framing as,
To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them
more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a
particular problem definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation,
and/or treatment recommendation for the item described. (Entman 52)
Kim and Cameron also state that Entman notes news frames are typically emphasized by such elements as visual images, symbols, concepts, metaphors and keywords (Kim and Cameron 380).
How news media is framed to only show certain aspects directed towards stimulating emotions is what Kim and Cameron examine in their article. They argue that this included affect as a major influence in the way people think or view a certain situation informing their opinions and standpoints and the veracity of their conclusions.
The CNN Effect
Steven Livingston and Todd Eachus help explain the CNN effect when they argue,
The CNN effect is the result of a clash of two distinct institutional
imperatives. On one hand is the perceived need of various foreign policy
actors to manage policy in an atmosphere of relative isolation, sheltered
from the vicissitudes of public pressure. On the other are the various news
media creating those very pressures. (Livingston & Eachus 414)
19 Daniel McSweeny’s article states almost the exact same, where he quotes Philip
Seib who claims the CNN effect is designed to draw out a tension that exists between policy making and news media, with the news media’s influence having the upper hand (McSweeny 3).
McSweeny argues that a subcategory of the CNN effect is that it acts as an impediment to continue operations. His first sentence explains why when he quotes U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madeline Albright in 1993,
Television’s ability to bring graphic images of pain and outrage into our
living rooms has heightened the pressure both for immediate engagement
in areas of international crisis and immediate disengagement when events
do not go according to plan. (qtd. in McSweeny 4)
McSweeny tries to explain how these images can solicit emotion and make it difficult on a President and policy makers because of popularity amongst U.S. citizens. He backs it up by stating,
Since 1989 the Department of Defense has prohibited media coverage of
American casualties being returned home in flag draped coffins. The
rationale behind such a ban is assumed to be that publicized images of
dead soldiers will inevitably lead to an erosion of public support for any
given conflict. This is more pertinent in deployments where vital U.S.
interests are not widely believed to be at stake. (McSweeny 4)
McSweeny discusses how unlimited access to media during wartime was not allowed after Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, when graphic images dominated
20 news coverage, censorship was called for. This censorship was established by some of the networks themselves. According to McSweeny, “This censorship was a direct result of the impact of public opinion and exposure to graphic imagery during the Vietnam conflict” (McSweeny 5).
The next subcategory talked about by McSweeny is that the CNN effect acts as an accelerant to policy decisions. McSweeny goes on to say that,
This deals with the concept that an issue given media exposure is often
put at the forefront of the agenda for the administration. From the
administration’s perspective an issue covered heavily in the media is one
that requires rapid clarification and/or policy to appease the questions
posed by journalists and the general population. (McSweeny 5)
This quotation suggests an administration needs to address the questions and concerns of the journalists and public. The President and other officials may not want to address things until they are ready, yet with news coverage, the public and journalists demand answers immediately. McSweeny then observes, “The result of this is that it forces the incumbent administration to work within much tighter time frames to establish policy in order to placate the demand for a stated position” (McSweeny 5).
McSweeny argues that it was this media exposure that may have led to the Clinton administration wanting the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Somalia.
He stated, “It is also important to closely follow Clinton’s reasons for withdrawal to fully investigate the extent of influence created by each factor” (McSweeny 5).
21 McSweeny goes into detail about how news media affected Clinton’s withdrawal efforts.
Research Question
How did news media play a role in presidential crisis rhetoric and action surrounding the U.S. intervention in Somalia?
22 Background on Somalia
It is important for us to understand why the United States entered Somalia in 1992. The background helps contextualize my analysis of the crisis rhetoric of
President Clinton and the news media and mass medias responses.
Somalia has dealt with conflict amongst groups within the country long before United States President George H. W. Bush agreed to meet United
Nations request for member nations to help aid starving Somalians. Mohammed
Said Barre became the leader of Somalia in 1969 and was overthrown from his position as leader of Somalia in 1991, which in turn lead to conflict between two groups of Somalians (Snyder 1; Hirsch & Oakley 5). There were between two and five clans fighting for power in Somalia at times. Some sources have five clans engaged in conflict, while other sources had only two fighting for power.
This conflict ultimately led to the destruction of Somalia’s agriculture and the starvation of many of the people of Somalia.
Power in Somalia, for these groups, came from controlling food distribution (Snyder 1). Often these groups hijacked food by ambushing routes used to deliver food. Once they commandeered the food, it was often traded to other country in return for weapons (Snyder 1). These weapons would then be used in the ongoing conflict between the parties.
The commandeering of food had great implications and led to many deaths of Somalian people, with estimates reaching over three hundred thousand
(Snyder 1). As a response to starvation, the United Nations sent in military
23 observers to Somalia in accordance to a ceasefire that was signed by the two conflicted sides. It was during this time when the United Nations realized they needed help and called upon the member nations assistance (Snyder 1). In
December 1992, one of President Bush’s last acts as President of the United
States was his decision to intervene by sending 25,000 troops to Somalia. The main objective of Operation Restore Hope was to secure trade routes that were being ambushed, allowing food to reach Somalis.
Once President Clinton was inaugurated, he immediately stated he wanted to reduce troops in Somalia and to have them replaced by United Nations troops. In March of 1993 the United Nations officially took over the operation with the mission objective to promote the building of the nation of Somalia from within
(Snyder 2). One of the key focuses was to disarm the Somali people while restoring law and order, improving infrastructure and also to help set up a representative government.
By June of that same year President Clinton had reduced United States presence down to just 1200 United States troops. That same month 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in an ambush while inspecting a Somali arms weapons storage site (Snyder 2). The United Nations responded, enacting an emergency resolution to find those responsible for the ambush killings. It was believed that
Aidid was behind the ambush of the 24 Pakistani soldiers. This lead to the United
States calling for the arrest of Aidid, offering a $25,000 dollar reward with information leading to his capture (Snyder 2).
24 Once the United States joined in the hunt for Aidid, American troops attacked targets in Mogadishu that were related to Aidid. This is when trouble began with the crisis examined in this thesis, as four Western journalists went to investigate the attacks, they were beaten to death by a group of Somalis. In
August, four U.S. military police officers were killed by a remote detonated land mine and two weeks later eight more soldiers were wounded. As a response to all the casualties, the United States called on Task Force Rangers to arrive in
Somalia (Synder 2).
25 Black Hawk Down: Brief Walkthrough of Events
What happens next helps set up my analysis of both President Clinton’s crisis rhetoric and the news/mass media effect on President Clinton’s rhetoric and foreign policy.
It is also cautionary to note that information heard from an outside source may not be fully true and often omits details, and witnesses to the events. For this section I focus on the book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War and the documentary that went along with it called Black Hawk Down - Somalia -
Good Intentions, Deadly Results. I chose these two because they seemed to be most authentic and provided facts of the events that transpired.
As I read through Mark Bowden’s book Black Hawk Down: A Story of
Modern War, I learned the accounts from people who were there and the pilots who flew overhead. The missions the rangers conducted up to this event had gone smooth with little resistance, but on October 3rd, it would be different.
The mission was designed to be fast and smooth like the rangers had experienced before. The mission was designed to have four teams roped in from
Black Hawk helicopters, grab the targets associated with Adid, and have a convoy of trucks and Humvees pick them up to take them back to base.
According to Bowden’s book,
The Humvees were filled with Rangers, Delta operators, and four
members of SEAL Team Six, part of the navy’s special forces branch.
Counting the three surveillance birds and the spy plane high overhead,
26 there were nineteen aircraft, twelve vehicles, and about 160 men.
(Bowden 5)
The 160 men were going to a target house near the Olympia Hotel. There were a few variables that added to the situation. The first was that they were operating during the day. Most of the prior missions that grabbed targets were during the night. Many of the fighting Somalis, according to Bowden’s book, chewed khat, which is a green leaf that acts as a stimulant, giving mental alertness, and excitement. During the day was when Somalis were chewing khat (Bowden 21;
Casper 78). I believe this is an important difference because khat allowed the
Somalis to be more alert, or even on edge.
The second variable was the location. The area was a located near a market where many of the fighting Somalis lived. It was known by the American soldiers located in Somalia that this was a place, during the day, which you do not go. This location made the operation a bit different than previous ones.
The four teams loaded up the Black Hawk helicopters and headed out to the target destinations. It was a four-minute flight from base to the target house.
Once they got to the target house where they thought Aidid’s top aides and Aidid might be, the Rangers and Delta would fast rope down into the street. From there they would take the house and take the people inside as prisoners. Sounded easy in theory, but it was difficult for the Black Hawks to get low enough to have the Rangers and Delta fast rope down due to how narrow the streets were.
Once the Black Hawks got into position, the Rangers and Delta were fast
27 roping down. It was believed that everything was going smooth at the start, yet when the last man out of one of the Black Hawk helicopters hit the ground, he noticed one of his Rangers had been laying on the ground, unconscious.
Apparently, he did not get a hold of the rope and fell 70 feet down to the road below. This made trouble for this specific group because now they were not only trying to fight off Somalis coming to shoot at them, but also they were trying to carry the unconscious soldier around wherever they went. What made this situation harder for the Rangers was that they were also trying to keep his head and neck stable, as to not cause any more damage. At one point they put him on a makeshift stretcher, carrying him a few feet before setting him down to shoot at
Somalis (Bowden 19-20).
The four teams of rangers outside each corner of the target house were waiting for Delta to finish grabbing the targets. It was only when Delta had grabbed the targets that the convoy would show up to grab them to take them out. However, there was confusion, so Delta was waiting for the convoy to show up and the convoy was waiting for Delta to let them know that they were done.
This was not the ideal situation given the time of day.
Somalis burned stuff to tip off Aidid’s militia, but they were known for burning tires. The tires sent up a thick black smoke that alerted others that this is the place where the fighting was. So, every minute delay allowed Aidid’s militia to get to the fight.
While they were waiting for the convoy, the Rangers who were posted
28 outside to guard the target house had come into heavy contact with Somalis.
One group was getting more of the contact due to the location of the intersection they guarded. This group was already one man down from missing the fast rope from the helicopter and it was not getting better. One man had been shot in the leg, and another had his thumb hanging on by a piece of skin. Although these injuries were nothing too serious, to them, they did not make fighting Aidid’s militia any easier.
As they were taking fire from most directions, the unthinkable happened.
The leader of one of the groups remembers being tapped on the shoulder and one of his men, Diemer, saying, “I think I just saw a helicopter get hit” (qtd. in
Bowden 67). This was a low point for many of the Rangers because they felt that the helicopters could not be shot down, but also they made low fast runs over the city that sent people running in all directions. The runs would clear streets for rangers, which made them feel sort of invincible.
An RPG, short for Rocket Propelled Grenade, was fired from the street and had hit the Black Hawk in the tail. The Black Hawk quickly began spinning violently towards the ground. Since the Black Hawk was shot down, the mission changed quickly. Instead of getting in the convoy to head back to base with the prisoners, now they were to get to the crash site and link up with all other forces.
From there everyone would be loaded up into the convoy and then they would destroy the Black Hawk. Getting to a downed Blackhawk was common because the Blackhawks had sensitive information on them that the military did not want
29 to get into the wrong hands.
Although regrouping around a downed Blackhawk may sound easy, the
Rangers and Delta were not even fully loaded into the convoy yet when the orders changed. Also some of the Rangers did not know what was happening or even that a Black Hawk had been shot down. It was routine for everyone in the convoy to know where they were headed. However, some thought the mission was over and all they had to do was get back to base; that was not the case.
They were taking casualties and not everyone would be able to fight. It was at this point where Eversmann, a leader of one of the Ranger groups, decided that his man who fell from the helicopter needed to get back or he would die, so he took 2 or 3 vehicles from the convoy for them to return to base. They took heavy fire on the way back to base, and one of the men who was shooting out the window at armed Somalis, was shot in the head. The bullet had hit him in the forehead, just below his helmet and exited the back of his head.
The remaining rangers at the target house were loaded up in the convoy and began moving. Their large vehicles made for easy targets at the many intersections in Mogadishu. Somalis would peer around every corner, in many windows and rooftops along the street all taking aim at the convoy. This convoy was in confusion as some of the men in the convoy believed the mission was over and that they were headed back, but the driver of the vehicles heard of the downed Black Hawk and knew their orders were to get there as soon as possible.
30 After the first Black Hawk went down, another took its place. According to
Bowden’s book, this was common in this type of situation. The Black Hawks were basically making big circles around the target area, keeping an eye out for any information that may be useful to either those in command or the rangers on the ground. It was during this time when another RPG was fired but did not hit the
Black Hawk. It had exploded next to it, but close enough to where it blew off a chunk of the tail rotor. According to Bowden, it felt as if they had just gone over a speed bump at a fast pace (Bowden 107). The pilot, Michael Durant, checked his systems over and everything seemed to be working and intact, so he kept to his circling pattern over the city for a few more minutes, before the other Black Hawk had told him he should head back to base. According to accounts, the blast caused his fuel to leak. The pilot wasn’t sure how much longer he had in the air, so he returned back to base.
The third Black Hawk in line, the one that replaced the already downed
Black Hawk, followed him for a minute towards base before veering off back into his circling pattern. As soon as he pulled away Durant lost his tail rotor completely causing him to spin violently. Now the Rangers and Delta had two downed Black Hawks they had to get to.
More and more Somalis rushed towards the downed Black Hawks and set up road blocks throughout Mogadishu, making it extremely hard for the Rangers and Delta to get where they needed. Even though they had a spy plane in the sky, the chain of command made it impossible for the spy plane to communicate
31 with the convoys. Apparently the spy plane would have to communicate directly with the command center back at the base, then the command center would relay the information onto the convoy. This used up precious time and often a spy plane would say “turn right” or “turn left” but by the time the information got to the convoys they were well past the turn they needed to make. This was just another in a long list of complications that made the mission problematic.
Since there were multiple convoys all on the same radio frequencies, many convoys got the wrong directions. One convoy had just drove through an ambush taking very heavy fire, only to end up back at the target house they had just left from. They received directions to turn around and head straight back through the ambush they had just traversed.
Bowden’s book discussed what it was like driving through the streets of
Mogadishu being fired upon,
At every intersection now Somalis just lined up, on both sides of the street,
and fired at every vehicle that came across. Since they had men on both
sides of the street, any rounds that missed the vehicle as it flashed past
would certainly have hit the men on the other side of the road. Sergeant
Eversmann, who had found some better cover for himself in the back end
of his Humvee, watched with amazement. What a strategy! He felt these
people must have no regard for even their own lives! They just did not
care! (Bowden 125)
It was amazing to the Rangers how many people came running towards the fight
32 as well as their fighting tactics. They obviously did not have the training the
Rangers or Delta did but they were still very adamant fighters.
There was a rescue team that was being sent into the first crash site from a different Black Hawk. The men would fast rope down into the crash site area, however there was a delay due to the fact some medical supplies had not been kicked out of the Black Hawk. As the last man went out he kicked out the supplies, which was a minor delay. It was costly however, when, according to
Bowden, “As Jollata held his hover these few extra seconds, an RPG exploded on the left side of his airframe. It rocked the Black Hawk like a roundhouse punch” (Bowden 138). Although the Black Hawk had been hit, the pilot, Jollata, was able to successfully drop all of the rescue team, and pull out. He made it back to base, but not without taking a good amount of damage to the Black
Hawk.
At this point in the mission not everyone had reached the site of the first crashed Black Hawk, meaning that the Rangers and Delta were not headed to crash site two yet. However, there was a Black Hawk with two Delta soldiers circling above in a separate Black Hawk. They kept radioing back to base and to the spy plane that they needed men there in order to help save those involved with the second crash. Both told them to wait because they were unsure if anyone had even survived the crash. If no one had survived, they would wait for a separate convoy with more power than just the two Delta soldiers.
So Black Hawk pilots Mike Goffena and Jim Yacone kept circling over
33 Durant’s crash site. The kept a close eye on the wreckage looking for any signs of survival or movement from the area. They noticed that there was movement in the cockpit when one of the pilots had moved a tin roof that had fallen on top of him. That meant the Delta soldiers wanted to get down there to give the crashed pilots and crew help. They believed that assistance would be coming shortly and if they could fight off Somali fighters until then the pilots and crew would survive.
Pilot Goffena got on the radio back to the command center and asked what to do. When he got permission to put them on the ground, he did just that.
Having no fast ropes, and the crash site being pretty open, with no large building around, pilot Goffena hovered about five feet off the ground and had the Delta soldiers jump out. According to Bowden’s book, “So long as there was even a tiny chance, they felt obliged to give it to the downed crew” (Bowden 165).
When they dropped in, they extracted pilot Durant from the helicopter and moved him about 15 feet from the plane. There he was set up against a wall.
Heavy fire began to shoot down on the helicopter and that’s when he heard one of the Delta soldiers scream that he had been hit. The other Delta soldier came back to ask about communication for emergencies on the helicopter. At that moment pilot Durant realized that there was no rescue team, and that this was the rescue team that had been sent to get him, two Delta soldiers. Shortly after he yelled how to get the emergency communication back up, heavy fire began again with the other Delta soldier now screaming he'd be hit. Not a minute later all shooting stopped and Durant figured both Delta soldiers that had come to help
34 were dead.
At this point, Durant was out of ammunition on a gun one of the Delta soldiers had given him. He had a pistol strapped in a waist holster, but he did not even reach for it. As Somali militiamen came around the corner to realize there was still one American left, and alive, he lay his gun across his chest, folded his arms across the gun and gazed his eyes up at the sky. He thought that this was it, he was going to die.
As the angry Somalis came rushing at him, one of Aidid’s militiamen got protective, and pushed people back. He knew that the American’s had taken prisoners all the time and figured that Durant was worth more alive than dead.
Even protected by a few of Aidid’s militiamen, the crowd was not stopped from taking all of his clothes. As they grabbed and drug him away people would kick and hit Durant along the way. One even hit him with the butt of his rifle, breaking
Durant’s nose and bone around his eye (Bowden 196).
While this was happening, the group that was at crash site one was stuck taking heavy fire. They kept taking casualties as the fight waged on. One of the
Rangers, Jamie Smith had a round that bounced up off the dirt and caught him in the leg. This was one of the worst injuries that the Delta medic Schmid had seen and was frantically checking Smith’s wound. He saw the entrance would but could not find the exit wound. There was a ton of blood loss, and Schmid knew that if Smith were not taken to base where they had more supplies, he would not make it.
35 The bullet that bounced off the dirt had struck his femoral artery. Schmid knew that he had to clamp the artery in order to stop the loss of blood. However, every time he reached in the wound, Smith would scream in pain. Smith had requested morphine but that would slow his heart rate and breathing down and would not be good. Schmid knew what he had to do, so he reached some fingers back into the wound and tried again to reach the artery. He had not gotten it, and
Smith was going into shock. Schmid had to leave the room due to how upset he became over not being able to get the artery. Smith was later given the morphine he requested to ease the pain, and died shortly after.
Some of the Rangers were still under the impression that the convoy was on their way and would be there any second. That was not the case, as the convoy had already made it back to base, unable to reach the first crash site.
When the Rangers got on the radio with base, they were told they could not be reached that night and would have to set up a perimeter there and wait until morning for another convoy.
It was now getting dark and the Rangers and Delta soldiers had settled down in their positions. They had faced problems throughout the mission but were quickly approaching another one, they were running out of bullets, water and IV fluids. Rangers got onto the radio and asked for a resupply.
By this time the shooting had died down, but if a Black Hawk were to fly in, the shooting would surely pick back up. That was what happened because as the
Black Hawk hovered over the crash site, it immediately started taking fire. The
36 Ranger in the back of the hovering Black Hawk frantically moved to kick the supplies off so the forces on the ground could get them. Bullets ripped through the Black Hawk making holes in the hull, holes in the rotors and even ripping through the transmission. The Black Hawk completed the resupply and pulled up to head back to base. Many of the officers back at the command post believed that this Black Hawk would surely be shot down or damaged like the previous
Black Hawks had been.
After the resupply, the Ranger and Delta soldiers at crash site one were in a bad position. They were spread out between three or four buildings, which made the Little Bird’s gun runs tough. The soldiers were already running low on ammunition from the resupply so the commanders on the ground told everyone to pick targets carefully and to communicate who was shooting as to preserve ammo.
Since the shooting had died down, they were able to hear a rescue convoy from afar. It had roughly 100 vehicles from different countries in the
United Nations and to the soldiers that were pinned down; it was a great sound to hear. It gave them hope that they still may get out of here alive. Although it was still a way off, at least the rescue convoy was on its way.
As the rescue convoy left the base, they moved slow and methodically, shooting at just about everything that came into their sights. They moved slow so that they would be sure they did not run over a mine, which made them easier to ambush or to be hit with an RPG. Even though they moved slowly, the entire
37 convoy was almost a mile long. If you were in the middle of the convoy, you could not see the lead vehicle or the last.
When they had finally gotten to the Ranger and Delta soldiers pinned down at the first crash site, they began loading up the wounded and dead into the Humvees and armored vehicles that they rode in on. Although they loaded everyone up fairly quickly, they could not yet leave. They were set on getting out the pilot who was stuck in the first Black Hawk that had crashed. Although he was dead, they would not leave him behind. Something that the Ranger and
Delta soldiers who had been wounded thought was a bad move.
After they had finally gotten out the pilots body and loaded it up in the convoy, the rest of the able Ranger and Delta soldiers that were stranded overnight went to get into the convoy. There was no room for them to fit, so they would have to walk or run out with the convoy. The idea was that they would use an armored vehicle as cover as they ran out. However, one of the armored vehicles, driven by a nervous Malaysian soldier, quickly outdrove the soldiers leaving them with no cover until they met with a different part of the convoy
(Casper 83-84). This became known as the Mogadishu mile.
At this point Black Hawk pilot Durant was captured, but being treated well.
Due to his injuries, it was painful every time Aidid’s men moved him from location to location but Durant was happy to be alive. A few days after his capture Aidid ordered a film crew to make an interrogation interview and by the next day his picture was seen around the world.
38 In the weeks that followed, many of the bodies of the dead Ranger and
Delta soldiers that had been dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, had been returned. Many of them were so badly beat and broken that people had a hard time recognizing them. The images of these dead Ranger and Delta soldiers being dragged through the streets still haunt many.
Durant was moved between houses two or three times up to this point.
This is when Robert Oakley, who had talked with President Clinton, had flown to
Somali to meet with Aidid and his men. Although Aidid was in hiding and was not at the meeting, Oakley made it clear to him that America would not trade or negotiate with Aidid. They wanted pilot Michael Durant released and they wanted it done now. One of the things Oakley had talked about was, that what he was about to tell them was not a threat, but also that if they did not release Durant soon, all the tanks and armored vehicles, tanks and aircraft that had just been brought over from America would be used and that they would attack harder than they previously had.
The other members of Aidid’s clan got word back to Aidid, who had taken the advice Oakley had given. There had already been a ton of bloodshed and it was apparent that Aidid did not want any more. Black Hawk pilot Michael Durant was released the next day, and all the power the United States brought to
Somalia was for show. President Clinton would have all United States troops out of Somalia the very next year, in 1994.
39 Study Object: The Media
In order to understand how the media plays a role in presidential crisis rhetoric, we must look at the news media and what it said. It is important to see what news media was saying before the crisis, or Black Hawk down, as well as after the crisis had occurred.
Before the crisis of Black Hawk down, people believed that intervention in
Somalia was the correct course of action. As I looked back on news articles, I see article titles such as “MISSION TO SOMALIA; Seared by Faces of Need,
Americans Say, ‘How Could We Not Do This?’” and a letter to the editor of The
New York Times Magazine with the titled “The Tragedy in Somalia Can’t Wait for
Clinton.” These articles placed with images of starving children, mothers and elderly people of Somalia made people in the United States morally obligated to want intervention.
In the first article, we see from a U.S. citizen that he believes this is a good idea, when he says, “’I think it’s a pretty doggone good idea. You must have to turn on a television to see that those people need help, and no one else is going to help them but us’” (Applebome 1). The majority of people talked to, in the early stages of intervention of Somalia, thought this was a good idea.
In the letter to the editor, written by Peter Bell, he says, “If the United
States waits until Bill Clinton’s inauguration before galvanizing a more principled policy, 100,000 more Somalis will needlessly die” (Bell 1). News media was covering people who wanted to intervene, to help end the famine in Somalia that
40 was caused by drought and warlords. Bell later states in his letter to the editor,
“The humanitarian emergency in Somalia cries out for leadership by the Bush
Administration now” (Bell 1). This again is showing how news media was framed to show us that this intervention would be a good idea.
We see a difference after the crisis, where opinions and beliefs about
Clinton’s administration begin to change. In Michael Gordan’s and Thomas
Friedman’s article “Details of U.S. Raid in Somalia: Success So Near, a Loss So
Deep.” The authors state,
The image of the United States pulling out of Somalia diminished the
stockpile of credibility – built upon the Persian Gulf war – that Washington
stands ready to use force to confront regional threats, and it raised doubts
at home and abroad about the Clinton team’s ability to manage foreign
policy. (Gordan & Friedman 1)
We see the change from some people’s opinion that the starving people in
Somalia do not have time to wait for the Clinton Administration; to the fact some people do not think the Clinton Administration are able to manage foreign policy.
This drastic change is something that could have affected the rhetoric of
President Clinton.
We see the news media framing events differently pre-crisis. Originally news media was framed as being positive and generally wanting to help the people of Somalia. However, after Black Hawk down, we see the news media asking questions and demanding answers for how something so catastrophic
41 could happen.
42 The Rhetoric
Before I dive into the rhetoric, it’s important to note the timeline of these events. President Bush gave his first speech on December 4th, 1992, towards the end of his presidency. When President Clinton takes over office in January 1992, nothing really had changed in Somalia, as Operation Restore Hope was a
Humanitarian mission. However, on October 3rd and 4th, a mission goes wrong as
I explained above, making this humanitarian effort, turn violent causing President
Clinton’s speech on October 7th.
Bostdorff claimed the four steps to crisis promotion as personification, urgent direction, documentation and intervention. I have to say that I believe
Bostdorff was very accurate. In order to look at crisis promotion, however, we need to look at President Bush’s “Address to the Nation on the Situation in
Somalia.”
Personification is the first component, states Bostdorff. She also stated that, “First, there must be an enemy or a condensation symbol of evil” (Bostdorff
741). I think we see this twice throughout President Bush’s address. First, when
President Bush states,
One image tells the story. Imagine 7,00 tons of food aid literally bursting
out of a warehouse on a dock in Mogadishu, while Somalis starve less
than a kilometer away because relief workers cannot run the gauntlet of
armed gangs roving the city. (Bush 1)
We see the cause of the starvation being armed gangs and the evil being those
43 gangs not allowing food aid to get to their fellow country people of Somalia. We see one more time, in President Bush’s address, the personification of evil. This is when President Bush states,
Let me be very clear: Our mission is humanitarian, but we will not tolerate
armed gangs ripping off their own people, condemning them to death by
starvation. General Hoar and his troops have the authority to take
whatever military action is necessary to safeguard the lives of our troops
and the lives of Somalia’s people. (Bush 2)
Again President Bush talks about the armed gangs and how they are raiding and stealing food aid and leaving the rest of their country to die.
Next, Bostdorff discusses urgent direction. This expressed sense of urgency allows people to rally behind a cause, in this case stopping the famine in
Somalia. We see in President Bush’s address the urgency when he states,
The scope of suffering there is hard to imagine. Already, over a quarter-
million people, as many people as live in Buffalo, New York, have died in
the Somali famine. In the months ahead 5 times that number, 1 ½ million
people, could starve to death. (Bush 1)
I think President Bush is trying to show people the catastrophe that could be on hand. He puts it in terms of things people in America know, in this case using to the population of an American city to explain just how many people have died of starvation already.
Documentation was Bostdorff’s next component to crisis promotion.
44 Documentation in this case was simple because the United States was already helping in the famine in Somalia. People had news media playing, showing them images of dying Somali people. We realize people have seen the suffering in
Somalia when President Bush states, “Every American has seen the shocking images from Somalia. The scope of suffering there is hard to imagine” (Bush 1).
The quote shows that news media had been covering the situation in Somalia and that the situation was bad enough for American people to want the United
States to intervene.
The last component, according to Bostdorff, is intervention. This component is self-explanatory and we see it in President Bush’s address when he states, “It was this situation which led us to tell the United Nations that the
United States would be willing to provide more help to enable relief to be delivered” (Bush 1). This is just one example of how we see President Bush provide more help for the intervention.
How Operation Restore Hope was originally framed by news media was as a humanitarian mission, in which the main focus was get food to the starving
Somali people. So, when the United States committed troops to Somalia in 1992, the media felt a need to cover it.
Media was covering Somalia already due to widespread famine caused by the warring clans in Somalia, but also due to a drought. However, when
President Bush committed troops to the United Nations humanitarian mission, the media began to direct more attention on Somalia.
45 Piers Robinson said in his book The CNN Effect: The Myth of News,
Foreign Policy and Intervention states, “With respect to the framing of reports the bulk of reports supported the policy of intervention using positive language such as ‘Mission to Somalia’ and ‘extraordinary actions to save hundreds of thousands of lives’” (Robinson 55). This indicates that people were happy with the United
States intervening to help save thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of lives. Later in the paragraph Piers Robinson stated, “out of 45 articles containing significant reference to the intervention decision, 30 were supportive of the intervention whilst only eight were largely critical” (Robinson 55). This again goes to show that people were supportive of the humanitarian efforts that the United States was putting forward.
Although the media framed the intervention as mostly positive, or empathy framed, a few were distancing. According to Piers Robinson, “Overall, of the 16 articles making significant references to the famine and war in Somalia, 12 were empathy framed whilst only two were distancing” (Robsinon 56). I believe it goes to show that most supported the idea of helping end famine in Somalia, but that is equally important to realize that not everyone supported our intervention.
United States troops were rushed over, and it was an ironic scene, as journalists had arrived to Somalia before the U.S troops. When the United States troops landed in Somalia, American journalists greeted them. Dr. Philip Johnston stated in his book Somalia Diary: The President of CARE Tells One Country’s
Story of Hope, that the press “seemed to know the exact time and place of the
46 Marines’ arrival” and waited on the airport runway and beaches to capture the moment (Johnston 73).
As things in Somalia began smoothly, and widespread famine subdued, due to the actions of the United States and United Nations, people became media fatigued by Somalia and American journalists began to come home. It was almost as if Somalia was not a top priority anymore. The American people had put Somalia on the back burner, but so did Washington. There was a coup in
Moscow, Russia, shifting Washington’s attention.
I do not think that news framing, or the CNN effect, alone affected
President Clinton’s rhetoric or decisions he made, but rather that his rhetoric were caused by a combination of the two. The way in which news media framed the original intervention, and also how many news media outlets were talking positively about the situation. I believe that since so many news media outlets were talking positively about our intervention in Somalia, the popular opinion followed suit.
After the mission that killed eighteen U.S. soldiers, people notice the way news media frames Somalia shifts. As the news media begins to show the images of dead U.S. soldiers being dragged through Mogadishu. The images were of U.S. soldiers being pulled around by ropes or by limbs. It was also important to note they were stripped down to shorts or what resembled shorts.
These images brought to people through news media, elicited anger and a sense of fear for soldiers still in Somalia.
47 That is why I think that framing allows the CNN effect work. Without the framing of the crisis in news media, it would have been left up to the people to decide what to think. People could have called for withdrawal, but people also could have hungered for payback. It gives American people the certain emotions that allow the CNN effect to work as an impediment to continued operations and also as an accelerant to future policy decisions.
As I began to read President Clinton’s speech on the events that took place in Somalia, I was a bit surprised. Through my research of Benoit, I fully expected President Clinton to use the evasion of responsibility tactic. After all,
President Clinton never ordered the troops to Somalia in the first place, so I believed he might address the fact that it was not on his orders that these U.S. soldiers were killed.
Instead, President Clinton took more of a corrective action approach. He lays out this approach in a couple of steps. First, by reminding people why we are in Somalia in the first place,
We went because only the United States could help stop one of the great
human tragedies of this time. A third of a million people had died of
starvation and disease. Twice that many more were at risk of dying.
Meanwhile, tons of relief supplies piled up in the capitol of Mogadishu
because a small number of Somalis stopped food from reaching their own
countrymen. (Clinton 1)
He explains the reason we went to Somalia, trying to remind people that we were
48 there to save lives. I believe he was trying to place the images that people had seen before our entrance, in order to bring back the favorability of going to
Somalia. Earlier I noted how news media framing was more positive than negative, when it came to the United States intervening in Somalia.
President Clinton then tries to show people how the intervention had been working the majority of our time there by stating,
Our consciences said, enough. In our Nation’s best tradition, we took
action with bipartisan support. President Bush sent in 28,000 American
troops as part of a United Nations humanitarian mission. Our troops
created a secure environment so that food and medicine could get
through. (Clinton 1)
This quotation shows how President Clinton agreed with public opinion when he thought sending American troops was the right thing to do. It sets him up for how this humanitarian mission worked. That is when President Clinton states,
We saved close to one million lives. And throughout most of Somalia,
everywhere but in Mogadishu, life began returning to normal. Crops are
growing. Markets are reopening. So are schools and hospitals. Nearly a
million Somalis still depend completely on relief supplies but at least the
starvation is gone. And none of this would have happened without
American leadership and American troops. (Clinton 1)
By phrasing his rhetoric this way, he allows American people to understand that what the United States has done, is working. I believe that this will set up for his
49 corrective action for the event.
President Clinton then goes on to discuss how this mission was to help
Somalia, and although it worked, Somalis may not have wanted the help.
Rather than participate in building the peace with others, these people
sought to fight and disrupt, even if it means returning Somalia to anarchy
and mass famine. And make no mistake about it, if we were to leave
Somalia tomorrow, other nations would leave, too. Chaos would resume.
The relief effort would stop, and starvation would soon return. (Clinton 1)
We see this to set up the corrective action. Although it may not be able to correct what happened, it is the correct course of action to follow, according to President
Clinton. This notion is important because it is his, and congress’ decision to make. He compares his decision to a burning house by saying,
We started this mission for the right reasons, and we’re going to finish it in
the right way. In a sense, we came to Somalia to rescue innocent people
in a burning house. We’ve nearly put the fire out, but some smoldering
embers remain. If we leave them now, those embers will reignite into
flames, and people will die again. If we stay a short while longer and do
the right things, we’ve got a reasonable chance of cooling off the embers
and getting other firefighters to take our place. (Clinton 1)
This comparison also set up the corrective action that President Clinton will take with continuing of the mission in Somalia. The passage also tells us that even though people are upset by it, a complete withdrawal would allow things to return
50 as they were before and that all progress made would be for naught.
President Clinton goes on to pose a difficult question, I believe, to spark those emotions that were earlier held by people. The question was “So now we face a choice. Do we leave when the job gets tough, or when the job is well done? Do we invite a return of mass suffering, or do we leave in a way that gives the Somalis a decent chance to survive?” (Clinton 2). I think the quote is trying to play on the emotions of people. He also states that the job would be better for
Somalia if it were done right, rather than half done.
After the question is posed, President Clinton then outlines what he is asking of American troops in Somalia. He states, “First, they are there to protect our troops and our bases. We did not go to Somalia with a military purpose. We never wanted to kill anyone. But those who attack our soldiers must know they will pay a very heavy price” (Clinton 2). He makes it known that we do not mean to harm the people of Somalia. He states his second step directly after, stating,
Second, they are there to keep open and secure the roads, the port, and
the lines of communication that are essential for the United Nations and
the relief workers to keep the flow of food and supplies and people moving
freely throughout the country so that starvation and anarchy do not return.
(Clinton 2)
This step is making sure that the people of Somalia are able to have the humanitarian supplies that they need. I believe that this step was also to play on the emotions that people felt before we intervened in Somalia, because most of
51 those emotions were positive towards intervening.
President Clinton’s third step was directed towards those who were responsible for the famine that had killed so many Somalis, but also at those responsible for the attack on U.S. troops. President Clinton stated, “Third, they are there to keep the pressure on those who cut off relief supplies and attacked our people, not to personalize the conflict but to prevent a return to anarchy”
(Clinton 2). I believe that this is more of a show of power than anything.
Especially since American people had lost favor with Somalia after seeing dead
U.S. troops being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
President Clinton’s last step is more of an explanation for the United
States staying in Somalia. President Clinton states,
Fourth, through their pressure and their presence, out troops will help to
make it possible for the Somali people, working with others, to reach
agreements among themselves so that they can solve their problems and
survive when we leave. That is our mission. (Clinton 2)
I thought that this step was a bit irrelevant because it was already stated in steps one through three. I believe the only use to people who had doubts was the phrase, can “survive when we leave” (Clinton 2), because it again played on the emotions of the humanitarian efforts.
President Clinton follows this up with reasoning behind why he is proposing this plan. He talks about how it will not ruin everything that Bush and
Clinton’s administrations have done to help Somalia but also for what it would
52 mean for America. This is when President Clinton states,
For, if we were to leave today, we know what would happen. Within
months, Somali children again would be dying in the streets. Our own
credibility with friends and allies would be severely damaged. Our
leadership in world affairs would be undermined at the very time when
people are looking to America to help promote peace and freedom in the
post-cold-war world. And all around the world, aggressors, thugs, and
terrorists will conclude that the best way to get us to change our policies is
to kill our people. It would be open season on Americans. (Clinton 2)
I believed this quote to be important because he not only discusses how this would be bad for the starving people of Somalia, but also how America would be greatly affected. It would damage our image with allies, and many friendships could be severed.
Towards the end of President Clinton’s address on Somalia, he discusses the heroism of American troops. President Clinton states,
When our troops in Somalia came under fire this last weekend, we
witnessed a dramatic example of the heroic ethic of our American military.
When the first Black Hawk helicopter was downed this weekend, the other
American troops didn’t retreat although they could have. Some 90 of them
formed a perimeter around the helicopter, and they held that ground under
intensely heavy fire. They stayed with their comrades. That’s the kind of
soldiers they are. That’s’ the kind of people we are. (Clinton 3)
53 I think it was important for President Clinton to speak of the soldiers who had been involved in that mission. He needed to thank those who risked their lives to protect their fellow soldiers. He also needed to address the families of the soldiers who were killed in the fighting. President Clinton did so when he states,
Let me express my thanks and gratitude and my profound sympathy to the
families of the young Americans who were killed in Somalia. My message
to you is, your country is grateful, and so is the rest of the world, and so
are the vast majority of the Somali people. (Clinton 3)
I thought this section was very brief, but I think President Clinton and advisors who helped him prepare the speech knew that it would just bring the images of those dead American soldiers back into the minds of people listening. President
Clinton was keeping that section short to have the speech more on the positives of our aide in Somalia, rather than American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
54 Findings
I believe that the media plays a very big part in presidential crisis rhetoric.
In President Bush’s remarks on entering Somalia, he states, “Every American has seen the shocking images from Somalia. The scope of suffering is hard to imagine” (Bush 1). This is only the second and third sentence of his speech, and he discusses the images that people have seen. I think it shows that the images and how they are framed by news media was something President Bush felt obligated to address.
However, news media played a bigger role once President Clinton took office. President Clinton took office in January 1993 and by October that same year, the crisis that I explained before, happened. President Clinton was not even a year in to his Presidency, yet media ridiculed him over the intervention decision that was not his.
This is why I fully expected President Clinton to want to end this intervention since he did not make the decision to intervene in the first place.
Instead, President Clinton stated that the job needed to be done right, and more importantly, finished right.
The way the news media framed the images and stories about Somalia after the events on October 3rd and 4th, can be seen very shortly after President
Clinton begins his “Address to the Nation on Somalia.” President Clinton states,
This past weekend we all reacted with anger and horror as an armed
Somali gang desecrated the bodies of our American soldiers and
55 displayed a captured American pilot, all of them soldiers who were taking
part in an international effort to end the starvation of the Somali people
themselves. (Clinton 1)
These images and the way they were framed made people ask questions.
Questions such as “Why are we still there? What are we trying to accomplish?
How did a humanitarian mission turn violent? And when will our people come home?” (Clinton 1), arose from people, and President Clinton felt he needed to answer them.
The reasoning behind most of these questions was, in part, due to 24 hours-a-day news media availability. Access to news media content throughout the day allows for people to see and hear about events that may not have made headlines in earlier years, when technology was less advanced. This access to news media 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, has the capability to drive foreign policy, which is known as “The CNN Effect.”
I believe the CNN effect plays a very important role in not only presidential crisis rhetoric, but also foreign policy. We see in Dan Fitzsimmons’ titled “On
Message: News Media Influence on Military Strategy in Somalia and Iraq” two quotes that help us understand the power of news media and the CNN effect,
Speaking on the power of the news media in world politics, former
Secretary of State James Baker III wrote in 1995 that ‘In Iraq, Bosnia,
Somalia, Rwanda, and Chechnya, among others, the real-time coverage
by the electronic media has served to create a powerful new imperative for
56 prompt action that was not present in less frenetic [times]. (Fitzsimmons 2)
Not only was a former Secretary of State on record stating how powerful the
CNN effect can be, but other international figures also had things to say. We see this in Fitzsimmons article when he states, “Similar statements have been made by international actors, including former United Nations Secretary General
Boutros Bourtros-Ghalli, who once remarked that, ‘CNN is the sixteenth member of the security council’” (Fitzsimmons 2). I think these quotes show us how high ranking officials viewed media and how they believed CNN affected decisions they had to make.
Through my research, I also believe that CNN effect is more heavily involved in use of Benoit’s model of image repair rather than Bostdorff’s model. We see in the literature review that Bostdorff discusses more on a promotion of a crisis side. She discusses the personification, urgent direction, documentation of the crisis, which in this case are viewed through images and videos that are plastered on news media outlets.
Although I believe Benoit’s image repair tactics may be more directed towards corporate image, I think they apply very well towards presidential rhetoric as well. We see many instances when both President Bush and
President Clinton applying these tactics in rhetoric.
I think that the ultimate driving force for Benoit’s model is the CNN effect. I believe in the next section how you see lack of media coverage can almost eliminate rhetoric until after a crisis. Bostdorff’s model of personification, and
57 urgent direction now can be solely placed in the media making Benoit’s model a much more important facet in presidential rhetoric in crisis time or even after a crisis.
58 Future Rhetoric and Foreign Policy
Through research, I believe that news media has an important role in not only presidential rhetoric, but also future foreign policy. News media played a key role in President Bush’s rhetoric before the conflict in Somalia, and also
President Clinton’s rhetoric during and after the conflict in Somalia, as well as future events that occurred in which the United States could have acted.
Through my research, I believe that Somalia directly affected the lack of intervention in Rwanda in 1994. In Rwanda from April 7th to July 15th Hutus killed an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, and much of the
Western world had chosen to ignore it. Scott Baldauf wrote an article titled “Why the US didn’t Intervene in the Rwandan Genocide” in which he discusses many reasons why the United States did not intervene but in his second paragraph states, “The US had just pulled American troops out of a disastrous peacekeeping mission in Somalia…the year before” (Baldauf 1). This quote shows how news media, even after Somalia, calls the peacekeeping efforts, a disaster. We see the same type of quote from another article written by Tim
Weiner titled “Clinton in Africa: The Blood Bath; Critics Say U.S. Ignored C.I.A.
Warnings of Genocide in Rwanda,”
After the disastrous 1993 mission in Somalia, the United States was
reluctant to become involved in an African nation it did not know well,
whose geopolitical importance was small, and whose sufferings were at
the time unobserved by television, Mr. Halperin said. (Weiner 2)
59 We see this same thing in a separate article written by Rory Carroll titled “US
Chose to Ignore Rwandan Genocide.” This article states,
The administration did not want to repeat the fiasco of US intervention in
Somalia, where US troops became sucked into fighting. It also felt the US
had no interests in Rwanda, a small central African county with no
minerals or strategic value. (Carroll 2)
I think that both of these quotes show how news media framed events that occurred in Somalia. One article labels Somalia a disaster while the other a fiasco which both portray negatively on President Clinton.
I think the way the news media framed the Somalia events also played a part in the rhetoric and inaction of President Clinton during the Rwandan
Genocide. We see in the above quote the key phrase “whose sufferings were at the time unobserved by television,” which means although people read news reports and news articles about Rwanda, they were not seeing all the horrific images that they saw from news media in Somalia.
We learn in Rory Carroll’s article that, “Intelligence reports obtained using the US Freedom of Information Act show the cabinet and almost certainly the president had been told of a planned ‘final solution to eliminate all Tutsis’ before the slaughter reached its peak.” This observation consistent officials knew and did not act. Carroll writes,
It discovered that the CIA’s national intelligence daily, a secret briefing
circulated to Mr. Clinton the then vice president, Al Gore, and hundreds of
60 senior officials, included almost daily reports on Rwanda. One dated April
23, said rebels would continue fighting to “stop the genocide, which… is
spreading south. (Carroll 1)
This shows there was knowledge of the events occurring in Rwanda and the people in the administration refused to call the events what they were, genocide.
“However, the administration did not publicly use the word genocide until May 25 and even then diluted its impact by saying ‘acts of genocide’” (Carroll 2). I think this quote shows that the rhetoric was shaped in order to down play in order to avoid any unwanted public outcry. We see this in the following quote from Alison
Des Forges, a Human Rights Watch researcher and authority on the genocide when she said, “’They feared this word would generate public opinion which would demand some sort of action and they didn’t want to act” (Carroll 2). It goes to show how public outcry for action shaped how senior officials chose to word the events that were unfolding.
Not only do we see how the Clinton administration chose not to act based on little news media presence of the Rwandan events but we also see Bostdorff’s theory involved through lack of media attention. Bostdorff claimed that three key factors of crisis promotion as personification, urgent direction and documentation, which would lead to intervention.
We do not see the Clinton administration make claims to the evil acts of killing Tutsi’s. It should have been easy to personify the hate that came from one ethnic group of Rwandan’s slaughtering another ethnic group, but that was not
61 something the Clinton administration did.
Urgent direction was never formed either, under the Clinton administration. The slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus only took about 100 days. If the Clinton administration had expressed urgency in the genocide that took place, the United States would have been able to help with everything going on in Rwanda.
Documentation was hard to find during the early stages of the genocide. I searched the New York Times with the keywords “Rwanda Genocide” and looked back at the 100 days the genocide took place. I only found 8 articles during that timeframe. I could argue that the due to little outcry from the public and news media, a chance at intervention was looking slim.
We also see President Clinton give a speech at a Rwandan airport on
March 25th, 1998, almost four years after the genocide. He uses a few of Benoit’s components of image restoration theory.
President Clinton starts off with, in my opinion, evasion of responsibility before he eventually expresses mortification. We see this during President
Clinton’s speech when he states,
The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its
share of responsibility for this tragedy, as well. We did not act quickly
enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee
camps to become safe haven for the killers. We did not immediately call
these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. (Clinton 3)
62 We see President Clinton talk about how it was not just America’s fault they did not intervene but rather it is the “international community” that must share the responsibility.
We also see President Clinton use corrective action in his speech. He does this on multiple occasions throughout. We see corrective action when
President Clinton says, “We owe to those who died and to those who survived who loved them, our every effort to increase our vigilance and strengthen our stand against those who would commit such atrocities in the future here or elsewhere.” (Clinton 3-4) His statement of how it is owed to those who died in this genocide, to be better in order to prevent future genocides is not the only way President Clinton used corrective action. He states in his next paragraph,
Let us work together as a community of civilized nations to strengthen our
ability to prevent and, if necessary, to stop genocide. To that end, I am
directing my administration to improve, with the international community,
our system for identifying and spotlighting nations in danger of genocidal
violence, so that we can assure worldwide awareness of impending
threats. (Clinton 4)
I also believe this is slightly an evasion of responsibility when he states
“international community” again. By including the “international community” along with his own administration in his rhetoric, it’s more difficult to place blame solely on the United States.
One of the other ways to reduce offensiveness is through compensation.
63 We see in President Clinton’s rhetoric this component of image repair theory is used. We are able to see this when President Clinton states,
… we must work now to remedy the consequences of genocide. The
United States has provided assistance to Rwanda to settle the uprooted
and restart its economy, but we must do more. I am pleased that America
will become the first nation to contribute to the new Genocide Survivors
Fund. We will contribute this year $2 million, continue our support in the
years to come, and urge other nations to do the same, so that survivors
and their communities can find the care they need and the help they must
have. (Clinton 5)
We are able to see from this quote the corrective action component of image repair theory when President Clinton states that we must “continue our support in the years to come,” but we also see the compensation component when the
United States offers two million dollars to the Genocide Survivors Fund.
64 Conclusion
Through my research, I believe news media affects presidential rhetoric during times of crisis. The way in which news media is framed, and images shown in news media outlets forces a president to form rhetoric to fit emotions of
American people. This rhetoric often fits into Benoit’s theory on image restoration, as every speech that I viewed in writing this thesis had some form or component to image restoration theory.
Another key piece is that news media often rises questions about a crisis that presidents usually answer through their rhetoric. We are able to see how in
Rwanda, little is known and little is shown. It is because of the lack news media presence in Rwanda that no questions were asked about what was going on and how we were going to help. Since no questions were asked, there was no need for rhetoric. This is exactly what we see on the Rwandan Genocide, no rhetoric.
I believe that with no news media presence of a crisis or event, there is no presidential rhetoric of that crisis or event. In the age of 24-hour news media and even with social media, there is far more news mediums to reach an audience.
Thus, making it harder for things, like genocide, to be able to go unnoticed by the public.
This means that news media plays a crucial role in a crisis. It may not force presidential rhetoric of a crisis, but it certainly makes it much harder to go unnoticed by the public.
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68 Curriculum Vitae
Educational Background
• BBA – Finance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• MA – Liberal Studies from Wake Forest University December 2019
69