THE IRAQI WAY: THE CONFLICT THEORY PERSPECTIVE
Introduction
When it comes to a social group, there is usually an identifiable material, political as well as social inequality. This inequality can be viewed or taken to critique the wider system as far as the socio-politics is concerned. This is the gist of the conflict theory. In this text, I look at the Iraqi war from the conflict theory perspective.
The Iraqi war: a conflict theory perspective
When the Iraqi war was in its first year, many analysts argued that it would not last more than five years. However, we all know it did in fact last more than five years and with that in mind, it makes sense to look at the Iraqi war from the conflict theory perspective. Mooney et al. (2008) states that the conflict theory could be taken to view the world as a field where inequality thrives. This inequality is the one that can be said to inform as well as influence change and conflict. The theory looks at how distinct classes vouch for the obviously scarce resources. The theory also displays the world as an inequality arena where the same is brought out in several fronts including but not limited to race, gender as well as class.
The Iraqi war was informed by the U.S.A and Iraqi conflict. It started in the year 2003 when Iraqi was officially invaded by American forces backed by other coalition forces and this was within the backdrop of a number of justifications for the same. The U.S.A claimed that Iraqi president was in the process of acquiring or had already acquired WMD or what is popularly referred to as weapons of mass destruction. The regime of the Iraqi president was also accused of amongst other things being sympathetic to organized terrorist groups. The invasion phase went on fairly well amidst casualties from both sides and it is after this phases that the coalition forces came in to assist the country to put in place a working transitional government amongst other things. However, Iraqi rebel launched an insurgency against the coalition forces that has been so far difficult to quell due to its use of guerilla warfare tactics.
The first way to examine the Iraqi war from the conflict theory perspective would be first by identifying the role of ideology as far as the conflict is concerned. Ideology according to this theory includes any false consciousness. an ideology in this case could be a belief that the ruling classes rely on for support and the working class believe in. it has been noted over time that ideology is in a large way supported or promoted in one way or the other by the mass media such as radio or television.
If we critically review the media role during the Iraqi war period, the assertion above seems to hold water. Mooney et al. (2008) notes that during the Iraqi war, we had crews from television stations covering the war as it unfolded. This is in fact the first war that was widely covered by the media with entire media crews traveling with coalition forces to cover the unfolding events. It is important to note that initially, the war was supported by a big chunk of media outlets who in most instances reported that the war was advancing in a rapid pace. In the recent times, it has emerged that this outlets were keen to cover or distort the number of civilian casualties while only concentrating on Iraqi forces casualties.
This distortion of information fed a majority of Americans with misconceptions with regard to the war and soon, opinion polls showed that a large majority of Americans supported the Iraqi war. These misconceptions were in a majority of cases relative to where a particular individual sourced the news from. Fox news viewers were believed to represent the highest rate of misconceptions with regard to the war. All in all, it was found out that most people’s support for the war at the time was correlated to their beliefs far as these misconceptions were concerned. From the social conflict perspective, this scenario presents a situation where a belief that favors and in which the ruling class nourishes and is in that regard relied upon by the lower class constituents. In this case, the bush administration is the ruling class while the country’s television viewers represent the lower classes.
Another way to view the Iraqi war in the conflict theory perspective includes a detailed look at those who were involved i.e. those who fought in the military. To highlight as well as raise some important queries as regards those who supposedly take up the military, we had a highly publicized quote in the year 2006 in which while addressing some college students he happened to tell, them that if they did not take their college work i.e. their studies seriously, they would end up “stuck in Iraq.” While this comment was regarded in some quarters as unfortunate, it did raise some specific queries as to who serves in the military. The tendency of the society to rank people in a hierarchy at the societal level is called social stratification.
According to the conflict theory, societal stratification inevitably ends up favoring some people at the expense of others. The theory seems to advance that those individuals fro the upper classes have higher chances of succeeding given that they are ushered into this world with a wide range of opportunities at their disposal as opposed to their lower class counterparts. It has been noted that a vast majority of soldiers who died in Iraq were from impoverished towns. When we look at this fact from the point of view of the conflict theory, one feels that social stratification is a reality. That is, it is a sad confirmation that the military stratification ends up benefiting those in the ruling class a he expense of those people as well as individuals coming from the impoverished parts of the United States.
Conclusion
It is estimated that annually, a total of $1.2 trillion is spent by nations in the world on war. With this in mind, a detailed examination of contemporary wars is not only important but it can also at times be largely instructive. It is important to note herein that the social conflict theory is not concerned with the societal inequalities diagnosis only. An examination of the Iraqi war military social stratification as well as ideology in the light of the dependency theory can also bring to the fore the wide range of insights availed by the social conflict theory.
References
Mooney, L.A., Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2008). Understanding Social Problems. Cengage Learning
Is this your assignment or some part of it?
We can do it for you! Click to Order!
