Propaganda

Huffing and Puffing at the Pentagon

dlindorff — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:02:26 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

American Secretary of War Robert Gates knows a real leader when he sees one. “Clearly, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, Vladimir Putin, and not President Dmitry Medvedev, "has the upper hand right now."

Well hell, Gates should know. After all, he deals on a daily basis with the same peculiar situation here in the US, where the president also is a figurehead and the real power lies in the hands of Vice President Dick Cheney.

But Gates doesn’t speak with such clarity and directness in other matters. "I think that there is a real concern that Russia has turned the corner here and is headed back toward its past rather than toward its future, and my hope is that we will see actions in the weeks and months to come that provide us some reassurance," he said, speaking on ABC and CNN, claiming that the country was returning to the authoritarianism of the old Soviet era.

Ahem.

It might also be noted that the US is heading increasingly towards an authoritarian future, no? Certainly over the course of the last seven years we have seen the executive branch in the US claim that it no longer needs to enact or adhere to laws passed by Congress or to terms of international treaties approved by the Senate. We have also seen this administration refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas for information and testimony from White House officials, effectively establishing the presidency as a dictatorship, have we not?

As for Gates’ condemnation of Russia for resorting to force in Georgia, one need not defend Russia’s actions there to note that such tactics have long been deemed fully appropriate in the US. Only recently America used force to depose an elected government in Haiti, hustling its elected president off into exile. The US has also been working assiduously through covert means to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela, even supporting (and probably helping to organize) a temporarily successful military coup there. Then of course there is the decades-long effort by the US to overthrow the government of Cuba, which has included everything from invasions and embargos to multiple assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Russia is clearly moving in an authoritarian direction at home, and is reasserting its influence and control over some—though hardly all—of the states that were formerly part of the USSR. But in all of this it is merely aping the behavior of the US government, which is becoming more authoritarian also, and which has always been a bully in its local neighborhood.

If Gates has anything legitimate to complain about it is that the American military disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its preoccupation with drumming up conflict with Iran, have rendered the Pentagon almost impotent when it comes to threatening Russia.

All that is left for Gates to do is huff and puff about Russia backsliding to the bad old days when it was able to stand up to the US as an equal.
________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Recipe

Chip — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:11:38 -0400

So many diversions, so little time! That is part of the strategy, of course. Impoverish people so they must work harder to maintain their daily lives, while simultaneously overwhelming them with info overload and ersatz news. Decentralize the crimes themselves through a network of events and operatives over a time continuum, and choke off government scrutiny and regulation by reduced funding. Buy off the people's government. Throw in classic disinformation methods, and wrap it all in the cross (invoking religious endorsement) and the flag (inferring without actualizing authentic patriotism).

Blend, at a moderate but continuously increasing pace, with intermittent but increasingly harrowing instances of terror.

Voila!

You have Fascism via the NWO.

How to Get a Job By Shooting Up a Church

davidswanson — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:00:27 -0400

By David Swanson

Imagine being so angry that you couldn't find a job that you were able to decide, as a man in Tennessee just did, that the way to solve your problems was to attack liberals - the people who support (albeit ineffectively) workers' rights, union rights, and fair trade, who oppose NAFTA, oppose tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, support investing in job creation at home rather than wars abroad, and want to tax corporations and the super-rich rather than small businesses and working people.

And imagine deciding that the way to attack the people who stand for everything that might help you is to go shoot up a bunch of men, women, and children. And then imagine telling those damn liberals: "You see, you were wrong at least about gun policies, because if angry desperate people who believe everything they hear on the radio weren't allowed to get mad and go buy guns I never could have shot up your children's play! And why are you showing a dumb play about poor kids, anyway? You never put on plays about people like me, potential billionaires down on their luck who've been threatened by Muslim terorists and mistreated by blacks and gays and women and liberals!"

And imagine the Associated Press report completely playing along with your delusion, and writing:

"Although individual Unitarian churches can vary dramatically in outlooks, most congregations retain a deep commitment to social justice, which has led many to embrace liberal stances on the ordination of women, civil rights and gay rights."

What if labor rights had been mentioned?

And then imagine that the Knoxville News Sentinel gives your heros credit for deranging your mind and filling you up with bizarrely misdirected rage:

"Inside the house, officers found 'Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder' by radio talk show host Michael Savage, 'Let Freedom Ring' by talk show host Sean Hannity, and 'The O'Reilly Factor,' by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly."

And what if you were then given decades behind bars, without ever a word of thanks from your heros, to think about what in the world you might have been thinking? What would your advice end up being for others in the same sort of trouble you were in?

I like to think you'd eventually recommend selling your radio and television and spending some time talking to real people.

Speaking as a liberal who supports a sustainable full-employment economy with guaranteed education, income, and health care, I'm sorry that we have failed you and so many others so drastically, in fact failed so badly that you don't even have the slightest idea who we are. I suspect that if you knew us you would find us to have goals you approve of but to be grotesquely and despicably timid, hesitant, and easily compromised in how we go about trying to accomplish anything. And you'd be right.

We'll tell your story, for a week or so, both as an example of the effect of hatemongering propaganda and as an example of desperate economic stress and lack of community. But will we DO anything to improve those situations? I seriously doubt it. This is an election year, after all.

MSNBC Lies About Warrantless Wiretapping

Bob Fertik — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:22:26 -0500

If you want to see the most dishonest discussion of the Orwellian "Protect America Act," watch MSNBC's Alex Witt and Col. Jack Jacobs - neither of them has a clue what they're actually talking about, but they do a great job of promoting Republican lies.

Witt and Jacobs were key liars about Iraq and the fact that they are still promoting GOP lies on TV is a disgrace to MSNBC and its parent companies, GE and MSNBC.

[transcript below]

ALEX WITT, MSNBC: What has this wiretapping law been doing, and why did it expire?

COL. JACK JACOBS, MSNBC MILITARY ANALYST: It permits the government under certain circumstances to listen to and to record the conversations of people in order to gather intelligence information. It expired because it was given a limited life in the first place because the Congress just doesn't like to give the government the authority to listen to conversations. But now ironically the administration would like to see it lapse -- it's been extended, by the way, even though it expired, it's been extended -- would like to see it lapse because it doesn't contain -- a new law will contain a specific provision to prevent telecommunications companies from being sued for cooperating with the government.

WITT: Which would get them more on board, then.

JACOBS: That's right. And the Congress doesn't want to do this, so now there's a huge fight between the administration, which would like to see a new law protecting the telecommunications industry, and the Congress, which doesn't want the law at all and wants to continue with the old law.

WITT: Okay, Attorney General Michael Mukasey sends this letter to Congress that says, "Hey folks, we've lost a lot of potential terrorist-related information in this last week alone." Like what?

JACOBS: Like listening to conversations that they would otherwise listen to but they can't. Why? Because the telecommunications industry does not want to cooperate. There are something like 30 or 40 pending lawsuits already against the telecommunications industry and internet service providers and so on, for cooperating with the government and violating their privacy. They're not going to participate anymore, the telecommunications industry, with the government, if they can't be protected. And so Mukasey's saying there are a lot of conversations we could have listened to, information we could have received, but we didn't get it because nobody's cooperating.

WITT: So does this mean that the terrorists, who are certainly aware of this situation right now, have got this open window? And they're able to communicate --

JACOBS: They do indeed. They do indeed. And there are other ways they can take advantage of the situation too, not just this law. But this is a big stumbling block in getting information which we can use to protect ourselves. It's a big fight and it will continue and this is an election year, don't forget, so it's got partisan overtones that you'll continue to hear about.

WITT: We will. Which means we'll be talking to you about it further. Colonel Jack, thanks so much.

JACOBS: You bet.

WITT: There's another twist in the Britney Spears case...

Whatever Happened to the Fourth Estate?

Richard729 — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:33:01 -0500

Hiring Bill Kristol by the NYTimes should come as no surprise to anyone considering the way the mainstream media have surrendered to the Bush administration's autocratic policies. With the general election coming up in less than a year from now we have seen the Republican right wing operatives and propaganda machine methodically worm their way into every major media outlet.

When G. W. Bush named Kevin Martin to head the FCC the Republican media takeover plan was inevitable. With little or no opposition from the Democrats, media giants can now implement their monopoly in controlling whatever news is disseminated for public digestion.

They now have a green light to own entire television networks, radio stations and newsprint in major metropolitan areas, key factors in the Republicans' strategy to win the presidency and even take back both houses of congress.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News and arch liberal-hater, is now the owner of the increasingly biased and partisan Wall Street Journal and he is close to finalizing the deal that will allow him to own the controlling interest of the WSJ parent company, Dow Jones.

This past November Newsweek magazine owners fortified their Republican-friendly editorial staff by hiring on one of the most vitriolic, inflammatory propagandists, Karl Rove, who undoubtedly will play a major role in Newsweek's influence on the 2008 election with his character smears and dirty tricks in this well planned out effort by Republicans to gain absolute dominance.

The New York Times, not to be outdone, proved much earlier that they were more than willing to shill for Bush's disastrous Iraq War when they fed the public a steady diet of misleading news stories penned by Judith Miller. Miller aided and abetted the Bush propaganda by promoting the false claim that Iraq possessed W.M.D.. Miller is gone now but the ultra right wing conservative, Bill Kristol, will fill her shoes quite well.

The transparency by the mainstream media to continue exalting the military industrial complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against is proof positive that the Republicans have gotten all their ducks in order while Democrats and their pathetically impotent leaders, Nancy "Stepford Democrat" Pelosi and Harry "Walter Mitty" Reid, twiddle their thumbs.

There have been only weak complaints and criticism of Bush's unbelievable assaults against our U.S. Constitution by the mainstream media even as they stand by and watch our individual liberties and freedoms diluted and stripped away. G. W. Bush claims what his legal handlers assert are his unlimited, "inherent executive powers," most of which are endorsed and sanctified by the other arm of the Republican Party, the Judiciary.

G. W. Bush's Star Chamber U.S. Supreme Court ruled that habeas corpus does not apply to detainees, either foreign or American citizens, if they are held and incarcerated under the Military Commissions Act. The current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court is composed of a phalanx of activist, partisan, right wing ideologues, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia (RATS) + one so-called swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, who accede to practically all of Bush's demands and ruled that those held in the Guantanamo Bay prison have no rights whatsoever.

Apparently, even in this egregious overreach of executive authority, the mainstream media have acquiesced in the settled opinion that the military court system is exempt from and outside of, any and all laws on which our U.S. Constitutional system of justice was founded. That being the case, it is an ominous sign for any of our U.S. military who may be unfortunate enough to be captured and taken prisoner in future wars where our enemies will apply the same lawless standards.

Recently, the Bush administration demanded legislation that will grant legal immunity, even retroactively, to telecommunications companies that are slapped with privacy suits for spying on American citizens and intercepting private telephone and Internet conversations without a court-ordered warrant or reasonable cause to do so. Maybe this edict has had its desired effect in intimidating and cowing the mainstream media whose reporters and writers could well be fingered by G. W. Bush as "enemy combatants."

A couple of weeks ago G. W. Bush threw a tantrum when he found out that the New York Times suggested that White House officials were instrumental in the CIA's destruction of the prisoner interrogation and waterboarding torture tapes. Bush demanded that they retract that contention and amend the story. Apparently, it worked. In a total act of contrition and capitulation, the New York Times editors hired on Bill Kristol, hoping to mollify the miffed G. W. Bush.

Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and chairman and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, "led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory."

Kristol, in his new role as a weekly columnist, will be reforming the New York Times in shaping the 2008 election. Like the editors of Newsweek, the New York Times editors seem to be willing converts as they bulk up their staffs with these insidious Republican smear mongers and henchmen.

The Fourth Estate was once a beacon of truth for the people and a watchdog over politicians who abuse their power and breach the public trust. What happened?

Richard A. Stitt

Austin, Texas

FISA Big Lie Alert

Bob Fertik — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:58:18 -0400

All of our emails and calls are giving Democrats in Congress the backbone to say NO to Bush's demand for warrantless wiretapping power.

So to avoid defeat, the Busheviks are once again playing their ace-in-the-hole - the Big Lie - which is being stovepiped into Congress through Rupert Murdoch's lie-filled NY Post.

On May 15, Spc. Alex Jiminez (left) and six other soldiers were on lookout in the Triangle of Death when insurgents attacked, killing 4 and kidnapping 3, including Jiminez.

While U.S. troops began a highly-publicized manhunt, NSA lawyers struggled to find a top Justice Department official to get an emergency warrant for a wiretap (of what I don't know - did the insurgents leave behind a cellphone or their personal address book?).

But it took them 10-12 hours because

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was out of town; Deputy AG Paul McNulty had resigned already; Solicitor General Paul Clement "had left the building"; and the other responsible official, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein was not yet authorized to approve the emergency order.

As Kagro X says,

It was the unprecedented level of corruption and idiocy in the United States Department of Justice that ground things to a halt. Everyone who hadn't yet been drummed out of government for their crookedness was just plain AWOL. And George W. Bush wants you to believe what was at fault was the only arm of government still at its post: the law itself. (Though they're trying to kidnap that in the pre-dawn hours, too.)

That's yer tuff-on-terrah pretzelnit for ya, ladies and gents. Unitary executivin' to th' max! Unless a lawyer shows up. Yikes!

And so, yet again on the FISA issue, total b.s. that has nothing to do with anything will be used to try to wrangle out a spineless surrender of everything the rule of law is supposed to mean.

When Congress held hearings on this event, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell lied to Congress - as he has now done several times.

A knowledgeable government source says the account Admiral Mike McConnell gave to the House intelligence committee about the procedure for wiretapping Iraqi insurgents earlier this year is "really terrible."

McConnell told the committee today that restrictions derived by the FISA Court this year on wiretapping foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through the U.S. prevented the NSA from surveilling Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped U.S. soldiers for 12 hours. But the source, who is privvy to the timeline of the incident, says "internal bureaucratic wrangling," and not court-based restrictions, were responsible for the lag time. "To get an emergency warrant, you just have to believe the facts support the application that someone is an agent of a foreign power," the source says. "That takes approximately five seconds to establish if you're going after an Iraqi insurgent."

So the whole story is a Big Lie. Email and call your Representatives and tell them impeachment, not immunity:
http://democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/114

Update 1: Atrios nails it:

Republicans, as they often do, are going to rely on that tried and true rhetorical technique known as "lying." The Democrats can:

a) Use this to show how genuinely serious they are by pointing out that, once again, this administration is dangerously incompetent.

b) Use this to show how "serious" and "tough" they are by caving in to a bunch of lying bullies and handing the dangerously incompetent administration even more unchecked power.

Pope Versus President

Heather Wokusch — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 12:26:07 -0400

The Vatican’s recent snub of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is only the latest salvo in the battle between Pope Benedict XVI and President George W. Bush. This tug of war has profound implications for both U.S. foreign policy and the critical Catholic vote in 2008's presidential race.

Overlapping Agendas

Things haven't always been tense between Bush and Benedict. They share similar views regarding abortion, gay marriage, and other hot-button conservative issues. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (as Benedict was known before becoming Pope in April 2005) even helped Bush secure the White House for a second term.

Specifically, after Bush visited the Vatican in June 2004, complaining that "Not all the American bishops are with me," Ratzinger sent a letter to US bishops, ordering them to refuse Communion to "a Catholic politician … consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" - a thinly-veiled reference to John Kerry. Ratzinger added that any person even voting for this Catholic politician would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion." Probably no surprise, then, that Bush increased his margin among Catholics by 6% from 2000 to 2004.

In an interesting twist, Ratzinger also partnered with George W. Bush's brother Neil in a foundation "to promote ecumenical understanding and publish original religious texts" in 1999. Oddly enough, business credit reports listed the foundation as a "management trust for purposes other than education, religion, charity or research," leaving the true nature of the Neil Bush/Cardinal Ratzinger venture unclear.

In 2005, Ratzinger was named as a defendant in a U.S. lawsuit suit accusing him of conspiring to cover up the sexual abuse of minors. At the center of the controversy was a May 2001 confidential letter he had sent Catholic bishops across the world ordering them to keep evidence of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy secret until 10 years after the child had reached adult status.

Soon after becoming Pope, however, Ratzinger was dismissed from the case. A US federal judge decided the lawsuit would be incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests."

Disagreements Multiply

On many contentious issues since then, Pope Benedict XVI has disagreed with the Bush administration's policies, but only politely and indirectly. For example, Benedict has spoken in favor of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is often at loggerheads with Bush administration foreign policy.

Similarly, Benedict's Vatican has taken a firm stance against global warming, even acquiring a carbon offset forest to make the Vatican the first entirely carbon neutral sovereign state." He has called for greater international co-operation to fight ozone depletion, yet not overtly criticized White House foot-dragging in that area.

The gloves came off, however, regarding the war in Iraq. In a May 2003 interview, Ratzinger said, "There was not sufficient reasons to unleash a war in Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war.'"

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was similarly contentious for former Pope John Paul II, who sent a special envoy to the White House in March 2003 in an effort to prevent an attack. The papal envoy's pleas fell on deaf ears.

Vatican criticisms of the Bush administration’s military intervention in Iraq have continued unabated. French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told an Italian magazine in August 2007, "The facts speak for themselves. Alienating the international community (with the U.S. push for war) was a mistake." Tauran, who has referred to the invasion and occupation as a "crime against peace," also said that Christians in Iraq "paradoxically, were more protected under the dictatorship" of Saddam Hussein.

Rice Rebuffed

As such, it is perhaps unsurprising that Benedict failed to honor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's urgent request for a private meeting last month. The Italian periodical Corriere della Sera reported that Rice was hoping to capitalize on the Pope's moral authority by having a papal audience focused on the Middle East. Instead, Rice was told that Benedict was on holiday and had to settle for a telephone conversation with a lower Vatican official.

The ongoing tensions between Bush and Benedict over Iraq put America's over 75 million Roman Catholics in a tricky position for 2008. By supporting candidates hawkish on the Bush administration's Iraq policies, are they defying the Pope and the Catholic Church?

For its part, the powerful United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has taken a firm stance against the US presence in Iraq. A July 2007 letter to House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), USCCB noted, “The current situation in Iraq is unacceptable and unsustainable, as is the policy and political stalemate among decision makers in Washington … our nation must have the moral courage to change course in Iraq.”

Dissent is swelling up from the grassroots as well. In August 2007, an alliance of religious groups calling itself Catholics for an End to War collected 10,000 signatures for an online petition “urging leaders to commit to a responsible withdrawal of U.S. troops.” Sister Simone Campbell of the national Catholic social justice lobby NETWORK said, "Church leaders and individual Catholics have opposed U.S. policy in Iraq since before the war began," adding that the petition “lets thousands of Catholics unite to speak out even more strongly for an end to the violence and occupation.”

In other words, being dovish on Iraq might help the next Democratic presidential contender win Roman Catholic votes. Whether the current front-runners qualify for that distinction, however, is another matter.

This article first appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus. Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives’ Handbook series, and can be contacted at www.HeatherWokusch.com .

Once Again, Corporate Media Sells Bush's Propaganda on Iraq Funding Votes

Bob Fertik — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:12:25 -0400

If you back through news archives, you'll discover that every time Bush heads into battle with Democrats - whether it's a legislative battle or an election - the Busheviks plant stories in the Corporate Media claiming "victory is at hand."

It's a simple and effective propaganda technique, a form of "psychogical warfare" designed to get Democrats to abandon the fight before it ever begins. I'm sure it's in Sun Tzu's "Art of War" somewhere - trick the enemy into defeating himself before the fight begins.

And Democrats in Congress fall for it nearly every time, while the Busheviks laugh their asses off watching them do it.

Over at TPM, Greg Sargent almost grasps this simple fact when he references the Bushevik lies that preceeded the 2006 election:

As you probably remember, one of the more unsightly aspects of the press' performance during the 2006 midterm elections was its constant assertion, no matter what the polls said, that the GOP was "confident" and "gleeful" and "on the offensive" against the Dems. A bunch of us stamped our feet for weeks about this, and the big news orgs finally started telling the story right, helping lead to the rout of the Republicans.

Now this is starting to happen again. And this time, the new media meme has it that the White House is "confident" that it's going to "win" the coming showdown with the Dem Congress on Iraq.

Sargent then links to today's NY Times propaganda piece:

White House Is Gaining Confidence It Can Win Fight in Congress Over Iraq Policy

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — The White House is growing more confident that it can beat back efforts by Congressional Democrats to shift course in Iraq, a significant turnabout from two months ago, when a string of Republican defections had administration officials worried that President Bush’s troop buildup was in serious danger on Capitol Hill.

Sargent points out that this is bullshit journalism with exactly zero sources.

Guess how many administration officials are quoted saying that the White House is "confident" that it can "win" the Iraq fight? Exactly none. One former official says he detects a "tonal shift" but says that it could be "ephemeral." A second official says -- anonymously -- that there's a "sense the dynamic has changed," but concedes the fight is up in the air. Only one former official says anything close to this, noting that people think the surge will continue into the spring -- hardly a sign of sweeping confidence in long-term victory.

Sargent also links to a similar article in the Pentagon Post:

saying that the White House believes that the Dem Congress will be reluctant to confront the White House and demand a drawdown of troops after General Petraeus testifies about progress in Iraq. The basis for this claim? A single anonymous source. Incredibly, no Dem was allowed to rebut this.

Sargent is a media critic so he focuses on the shitty journalism. But despite reading years of "shitty journalism," Sargent hasn't figured out that this stuff doesn't materialize out of thin air.

It has a name: propaganda. And it's how we got into Iraq, in case Sargent was living in a cave in 2002-2003 and during the Scooter Libby trial.

As we all know from the Libby trial, there are people in the White House who manufacture this shit and call their cronies in the Corporate Media and convince them to publish/broadcast it. They used to work for Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. Now they work for Ed Gillespie and David Addington. The Busheviks may change, but Bushevism never changes.

In rare cases, the "journalists" are unwitting dupes. (Was Judith Miller an unwitting dupe? Yes by her account - but who believes her?) Most of the time they know exactly what's going on because they are "loyal Bushies." Obviously this includes everyone at FOX, the Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but there are lots of "loyal Bushies" throughout the rest of the Corporate Media, including such "liberal" bastions as the NY Times and the Pentagon Post.

The Bushevik technique is to plant the story in one semi-credible Corporate Media outlet and then get the rightwing media (and the White House) to echo the story until it becomes "conventional wisdom." Sargent correctly describes the process as a "hall-of-mirrors":

But really, this notion of "momentum" is all too often a Beltway-concocted illusion, the result of a hall-of-mirrors effect where one pundit repeats it after hearing it from another pundit, who heard it from another pundit, and so on.

Of course Bushevik propaganda only works if Democrats believe it. So it's essential that bloggers like Greg Sargent recognize the telltale signs - like zero sources - and draw the simple conclusion that it's not accidental bullshit but deliberate lies. And then they need to blow the whistle on the reporter whose name is on the story and demand an explanation from the reporter, their editors, and the ombudsman.

And naturally media critics shouldn't lend credence to the propaganda by bending over backwards to find "facts" where none exist, as Sargent does:

Maybe the White House is confident about this fight, but you wouldn't know it from the quotes in this piece... Look, again, maybe the White House is confident that it will win this fight...

It's time for all media critics to adopt a simple rule: if there are no facts and no credible sources, it's just propaganda and lies, and whoever is responsible should be held fully accountable.

Wake up, Greg!

Welcome to the Jungle: US Military Psychological Operations and You

Heather Wokusch — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:28:41 -0400

"...the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other." - Benjamin Franklin, 1787

They say that if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water it will immediately jump out, but that if you raise the pot's heat gradually, the frog won't react.

The US public has been on a slow boil since 2001. This administration's rollbacks have been so consistent and so egregious that it's no surprise many Americans feel apathetic.

And that begs the question: What exactly would it take to get the US public spurred into action?

Sentient World Simulation (SWS) may have an answer. It's a computer-based project designed to "generate alternative futures" and no surprise, the US Defense Department is actively involved.

According to one of the project's developers, Purdue University professor Alok Chaturvedi, "SWS will consist of a synthetic environment that mirrors the real world in all it key aspects - Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information, and Infrastructure." The goal is to copy each person on earth into the SWS parallel universe, and then see how they respond to external events such as natural disasters or political upheavals.

The concept paper Chaturvedi co-authored additionally notes, "SWS provides an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP)," to help the military "develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners."

To anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners.

Blurring the lines between military and civilian Psychological Operations is nothing new. In 1989, US forces in Panama blasted Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" into the Vatican Embassy during negotiations for the handover of General Manuel Noriega, and from 1998-1999, US military PSYOP personnel interned at both CNN and NPR.

More recently, a 2003 Pentagon document called Information Operations Roadmap detailed the US military's approach to exploiting information in order to "keep pace with warfighter needs and support defense transformation." Personally approved by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the document was declassified in 2006 and covers everything from the Pentagon's plans for Computer Network Attack ("We Must Fight the Net") to beefing up the use of Psychological Operations ("We Must Improve PSYOP") to manipulating information through means including: "Radio/ TV/Print/ Web media designed to directly modify behavior and distributed in theater supporting military endeavors in semi or non-permissive environment."

While The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 forbids US propaganda intended for foreign audiences from being used domestically, Information Operations Roadmap acknowledges that "information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa."

The 2003 Pentagon document adds, "the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [U.S. government] intent rather than information dissemination practices."

Perhaps that's why a top US general ordered public affairs to be joined with combat PSYOP into one "strategic communications office" in Iraq in the summer of 2004.

Domestically, it doesn't help that SWS and other developments in military Psychological Operations are accompanied by rollbacks in the right to dissent and bipartisan support of government surveillance of American citizens.

Makes you wish our cyberspace clones could tell us how best to fight the Matrix.

At the very least, we must become more vigilant about the ongoing use of military PSYOP and misinformation – the Pat Tillman case is a perfect example. Holding the Defense Department and media accountable for every mislead regarding the Bush administration's military adventurism is more important than ever.

Action Ideas:

1. For a great database on the Bush Administration's misleads about Iraq, see Rep. Henry A. Waxman's Iraq on the Record. (http://oversight.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord).

2. One Defense Department group particularly especially interested in these topics is The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its Information Exploitation Office, (http://dtsn.darpa.mil/ixo/) for example, is focused on "shaping the battlespace before conflict" and its site is filled with snappy computer graphics reminiscent of militaristic video games. Taxpayer dollars hard at work.

3. For media watchdog groups, check out Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (http://www.fair.org) and Media Matters for America (http://mediamatters.org)

4. Had enough? E-mail, call or write the White House, Congress or state and local government at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/.

Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives' Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now series. For a linked version of the article or to contact Heather, visit www.heatherwokusch.com.

Very disturbing website

rdduck2 — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:48:12 -0400

I'm new here...but I came across a very distubing website [Link deleted by Moderator] It has an aweful lot of nasty, and anti-democrat trash on it. It also seems to think it's funny to poke fun at ethnic groups and the things we believe in. Isn't there something that can be done about these people?