The band Anti-Flag, whether you think their music is good or not, have been a leading force in fighting political and social injustice through music. They are currently touring with Michael Moore in efforts to gain support for John Kerry for this upcoming election on November 2nd. I wanted to take some time to show the “lyrics” from a song titled “Anatomy of Your Enemy.” This song outlines steps of how to create an enemy and how to start a war. In 1925 Hitler published Mein Kampf, this book also outlined many of these same points. I am going to list these steps and illustrate their relevance to the war we are currently involved in.

First step: create the enemy. Sometimes this will be done for you.

The original missions of this war were justifiable, so the enemy was created for us.

Second step: Be sure the enemy that you have chosen is nothing like you. Find obvious differences like race, language, religion, dietary habits, fashion. Emphasize that their soldiers are not doing a job; they are heartless murderers who enjoy killing.

The government and media have used this undertone when portraying Middle Eastern people, emphasizing that they are different in a negative way and want to kill.

Third step: Once these differences are established continue to reinforce them with all disseminated information.

By providing this information and providing it often, it will always keep it in the minds of the people, causing a constant unease with the situation. Therefore cause them to have a course of action taken. War.

Fourth step: Have the media broadcast only the ruling party's information. This can be done through state run media. Remember, in times of conflict all for-profit media repeats the ruling party's information. Therefore all for-profit media becomes state-run.

There is always talk about un-biased reporting from television networks, but un-biased reporting should go beyond party lines, and show the WRONGS our soldiers are involved in an equal light, and not a side note during a broadcast.

Fifth step: Show this enemy in actions that seem strange, militant, or different. Always portray the enemy as non-human, evil, a killing machine.

The media shows enemy citizens dancing and throwing rocks at a burning American convoy vehicle they destroyed. Horrible scene, they look quite militant indeed. But think of some of our soldiers doing the same thing. It happens, we aren’t so different.

Sixth step: Eliminate opposition to the ruling party. Create an "Us versus Them" mentality. Leave no room for opinions in between. One that does not support all actions of the ruling party should be considered a traitor.

After 9/11 there was a lot of opposition to the idea of going to war in Iraq. There were a lot of people who stood up and said that was wrong. These people were labeled “un-patriotic” by many sensationalist Americans who were caught up in the shockwaves of 9/11. This administration failed on this step.

Seventh step: Use nationalistic and/or religious symbols and rhetoric to define all actions. This can be achieved by slogans such as "freedom loving people versus those who hate freedom." This can also be achieved by the use of flags.

Prime example (and one I have made before) those little ribbons on everyone’s cars; clearly propaganda. Same with all the American flags people put on their car after 9/11.

Eighth step: Align all actions with the dominant deity. It is very effective to use terms like, "It is God's will" or "God bless our nation."

We see this at every speech and debate. Both Bush AND Kerry use God as being a supporter of America. These statements bring up many religious questions just to begin with. What ever happen to separation of church and state? I suppose hypocrisy was also one of the founding fundamentals of this nation.

Ninth step: Design propaganda to show that your soldiers have feelings, hopes, families, and loved ones. Make it clear that your soldiers are doing a duty; they do not want or like to kill.

You see it anytime they try to get personal, they show the sacrifices our soldiers are making, and how they have dreams and loving families. But not all of them are noble and have good intentions, I’ll explain more after step 10.

Tenth step: Create and atmosphere of fear, and instability and then offer the ruling party as the only solutions to comfort the public's fears. Remembering the fear of the unknown is always the strongest fear.

Primarily the terror level status bar thingy they have been using has done this. By keeping the terror level up and hyping up any major event as having a threat of terror, it keeps the public in fear of disaster.

Now I don’t want to prove all the points Michael Moore already has, but this brings me to the step that I have been noticing a disturbing trend in: step number nine. Yeah, after all that, I am just getting to my point NOW. I’ll make it short.

Over this past week I have seen some examples of people in the armed services or people going into the service who do not fit the mold of the proud, flag waving, patriots that out government has portrayed them as. In my Comparative World Religions course in college, there is a classmate of mine who is fresh off the battlefields of Iraq. He was telling the class about how some of his brothers in arms were really in it for the killing. They had hate in their eyes and were just excited to have an M-16 at their disposal. Killing is not a big thing for some of these soldiers.

Also I was at my girlfriend’s field hockey game and I was listening to a conversation involving one of the seniors in the crowd. Someone asked him what his plans were after he graduated. His matter of fact response was, AND I QUOTE, “I’m gonna go into the army; shoot some people.” Not all our soldiers are the blue eyed, red white and blue loving heroes.

After the BACKLASH from my last column, I feel it is necessary after such topics to establish my views. I do not think terrorist groups and people in the Middle East who commit crimes of hate and anguish are right. However, I don’t think we portray our own soldiers in the same light as our enemy’s. Note that I also realize some of our soldiers are good and noble people. Propaganda and media influence has created this war and I think there are a lot of misconceptions of our opponents.

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