And this a day after London was awarded the Olympics...

Posted at July 7, 2005 8:30 AM in response to Coordinated Terror Attacks in London

And this a day after London was awarded the Olympics...

Posted at July 7, 2005 8:28 AM in response to Coordinated Terror Attacks in London

If a reporter had to be jailed in this whole mess, it couldn't have happened to a "nicer" person than Judith Miller. (Novak is a close second.)  Miller's role as the Administration's chief pro-war disinformation agent in the MSM-- she shamefully relied on uncorroborated  sources like Ahmed Chalabi and Curveball -- was enough to earn her a place in the slammer.

Yes, that is a different matter from the issue of journalistic privilege, existing law and whether we should have a federal shield statute. But as concerns the effects of her imprisonment there is a silver lining. Granted, there will be a chilling effect on future whistle blowers, but this is a sword that cuts both ways- it could also  discourage future Miller-esque psy op disinformation campaigns, at least those that have a criminal element to them (such as bogus leaks that originate from within the Pentagon).

One need only review the fifty disinformation operations associated with the Iraq War that Col. Sam Gardiner's documents in his "Truth From These Podia" to understand the length that the Administration will go to sell a war, and then maintain public support for it.  Using the cover of journalistic privilege shouldn't be a tool available to the insidious propagandist.

Propagandee 

Posted at July 6, 2005 1:44 PM in response to Matt Speaks!

Didn't soon to be Florida Senate candidate Katherine Harris claim to have secret intel on a terrorist attack planned for America just prior to last year's elections?

The other day Monica Crowley was a guest on some CNBC show and was having her head handed to her by a leftie radio talk show host. She played her "I'm a ph.d." card', which was bad enough, then proceded to lecture her opponents that because she had seen  top secret intel about something or other, she knew whereof she spoke.

I think I see a pattern here, a page from the Rovian loyalty playbook. Identify people with media influence, invite them to a top secret meeting and them blow some specious intel smoke up their ass. Now they are part of the in-crowd, with special knowledge that the rest of mere mortals can only dream about.

Posted at June 29, 2005 7:29 PM in response to Congress: Where Wingnuts Rule

The local ABC News affiliate in LA ran a poll a day before the speech and then immediately thereafter.

I was expecting a small bully pulpit bounce, but the results showed something like a 4 point DROP in support for the war AFTER the speech. 

Posted at June 29, 2005 9:46 AM in response to Bush on Iraq: Nothing New

If I hear the totally immoral argument about preferring to fight the terrorists in Iraq instead of the US go unchallenged in the MSM one more time I'm going to puke. Does anybody even wonder how the Iraqis feel about being made a free-fire zone for Bush's delusional GWOT?

We need to discredit this deplorable NIMBY defense. Just imagine how  it would sound to the judges at the Hague.

 ....
 

Prediction: The new winger meme will be "hotbed", as in hotbed of terrorism.

Posted at June 28, 2005 8:27 PM in response to Prez says Dance with the Girl Who Brung Ya

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years.

Instead, officers say, the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics - an arena that so far has been crippled by divisions between Shiite Muslims, whose coalition dominated the January elections, and Sunni Muslims, who are a minority in Iraq but form the base of support for the insurgency.

"I think the more accurate way to approach this right now is to concede that ... this insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations," Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said last week, in a comment that echoes what other senior officers say. "It's going to be settled in the political process."

Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, expressed similar sentiments, calling the military's efforts "the Pillsbury Doughboy idea" - pressing the insurgency in one area only causes it to rise elsewhere.

"Like in Baghdad," Casey said during an interview with two newspaper reporters, including one from Knight Ridder, last week. "We push in Baghdad - they're down to about less than a car bomb a day in Baghdad over the last week - but in north-center (Iraq) ... they've gone up," he said. "The political process will be the decisive element."

The recognition that a military solution is not in the offing has led U.S. and Iraqi officials to signal they are willing to negotiate with insurgent groups, or their intermediaries.

snip

Read the rest at http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11879336.htm?template= contentModules/printstory.jsp

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I've tried to see the Iraq situation from Friedman's POV, but so far I haven't been able to get my head that far up my #$$! 

Posted at June 15, 2005 8:08 PM in response to "Consistent" Iraq criticism

Dissembling.

From Mirriam-Webster

Main Entry:dissemble
Pronunciation:di-*sem-b*l
Function:verb
Inflected Form:dissembled ; dissembling  \-b(*-)li*\

transitive senses 
1 : to hide under a false appearance
2 : to put on the appearance of : SIMULATE
intransitive senses   : to put on a false appearance : conceal facts, intentions, or feelings under some pretense
  dissembler \-b(*-)l*r\  noun  The term "dissembling" means a deliberate falsehood- a lie. But with less of an emotional charge.

Exampe:  Bush's infamous 16 words about the bogus uranium imports from Niger. While it was factually true that the Bushies had heard a report about Iraq wanting to import uranium from Niger from a foreign intelligence source (Italy, Britain?), it was also true that they knew the substance of the report was bogus (the reason why they dropped it from the Oct '02 Cincinnatti speech).

Alternatively, we could give the word a little extra presidential punch by citing the latest entry into the Bush Dyslexicon- "dissassemble"; as in dissassembling the lies about Iraq.

 
Propagandee

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted at June 14, 2005 9:10 AM in response to Calling Lies Lies

Aldous Huxley's Grey Eminence. The story of Father Joseph, Cardinal Richelieu's "principal associate and collaborator...a personality who lived in poverty and personal saintliness but whose policies led to The Thirty Years War and who, according to Mr. Huxley, is the ultimate originator of the terrible wars of the Twentieth century." (From the cover.)

 "Never has Mr. Huxley displayed his talents with greater skill and acumen. One can take for granted his erudition, his skillful analysis and his historical sense.  But what is astonishing in the present book is his ability to get inside the skin of a Seventeenth century mystic and to analyze with amazing virtuosity the process by which a virtual saint became of the most subtle, most hated and most Machiavellian foreign ministers of his time." -The Atlantic Monthly
 
I have little doubt if Aldous were alive today he'd choose for his subject one Karl Rove and write about him in a similar vein.

Posted at June 8, 2005 10:10 PM in response to History

Sustaining A War 101 requires maintaining a myth so as to distract from the actual horrors of war. (See, e.g., Chris Hedges' <i>War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning</i>). The particular myth of the Iraq War has been destroyed- no WMD, no Al Qaeda link. The back-up  myth- bringing democracy to the heathens- has also evaporated in the elapsed time between the heavily flawed election in Jan and the chaos of the present.

The direct consequences of the war are fairly well known- the dead, the grievously injured- both physically and mentally- the monetary cost. All this needs to be kept in the public eye. But the longer term costs need to emphasized- the debt we are forcing onto our children and grandchildren, the loss of liberties at home (Patriot Act II), the post-Vietnam type polarization of the citizenry, the degradation of our military readiness- to name just a few.

It's one thing for people to be disillusioned about it's progress or lack thereof; it's quite another for them to realize that they've been duped from the get go. Anger is a potent campaign emotion.  Things like the  Downing Street Memo needs to be emphasized. Signing John Conyer's petition asking for a Congressional investigation into the memo is a good place to start. Pat Roberts promised a follow-up investigation into whether the intel was manipulated after the Nov elections. He's reneged and we have to start demanding to know why.

Going  forward, we need a compelling Contra-Myth, one that emphasizes the truth about how we got into the war and more importantly, where it is taking us.

Posted at June 8, 2005 10:14 AM in response to Adding on