March 22, 2006
An inquiry
released today found that Lincoln Group, a US public relations firm,
didn't violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print
positive articles. Now, the Pentagon says they want to do a little
tinkering to get their efforts out of the spotlight.
I get the
impression that Rumsfeld knows their Iraq propaganda program is going
to explode in their faces if they don't cut the Lincoln group off, but
I don't think for a moment that either the Pentagon or the White House
is abandoning their plans to achieve what they envision as 'information
superiority'.
Rumsfeld spoke recently on the need to control
information surrounding their expansive wars. "U.S. military public
affairs officers must learn to anticipate news and respond faster, and
good public affairs officers should be rewarded with promotions," he
said.
"The Pentagon's propaganda machine still operates mostly
eight hours a day, five days a week while the challenges it faces occur
24 hours a day, seven days a week." he lamented. He then complained
that the "vast media attention about U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq outweighed that given to the discovery of "Saddam Hussein's
mass graves."
However, he was just upset that there were
pictures, proof of their crimes. That's the control they want with the
press that surrounds their imperialism. Their concern with the news
isn't just about protecting soldiers or catching al-Qaeda, although
there are those things going on in the military planning room that may
involve legitimate security. The thrust of their efforts is to create a
zone of 'good news' that will permeate the airwaves and print media,
and obscure the bloody images and alarming reports which provide the
public with a clear view of the realities of the disaster in Iraq.
Bush revealed his own desire to shade the news to reflect his rosy outlook on Iraq in his news conference yesterday:
"It's -- confidence amongst the Iraqis is what is going to be a vital
part of achieving a victory," he said, "which will then enable the
American people to understand that victory is possible. In other words,
the American people will -- their opinions, I suspect, will be affected
by what they see on their TV screens . . .
The Pentagon and
Bush expect for the images that they pay for and feed into their
purchased press in Iraq to trickle into the mainstream media to be
quoted and disseminated around the world as a counter to the realties
expressed by the daily images of violence and despair coming from the
occupied nations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's what makes
this finding irrelevant. The Army guidelines and law say that this type
of activity is legitimate for the battlefield, but only outside of the
US. Any of this found going on within our borders and we'd be looking
at a major scandal. It's just a technicality, though, that keeps the
propaganda program in Iraq legitimate. As the article states, the
actions of the Lincoln Group were not expressly prohibited by its
contract or military rules. But, there should be a concern about what
information is being pushed, what it's source is, and who is doing the
broadcasting.
In January, a top Army general mused
that information is critical as 'firepower' in 'long war'. The American
people must remind themselves every day that the United States is at
war, the general said.
Fighting the 'war on terror' is these
militarists' bread and butter. They have a vested interest in seeing
enemies everywhere. Anyone who they regard as an obstacle to their
cabal's consolidation of power is the enemy.
Notice how
concerned they are with our perception of their war. They want to get
us on board in their paranoid grab for power with a campaign of
propagandized fear. Their 'war' is only authorized by Congress to
pursue the 'perpetrators of 9-11", not an open ended license to conquer
the world and hijack our hard earned sacrifices to generations of
militarism. The only way they can perpetuate that is to lie.
The realities of these military interventions don't support their
rhetoric about defending democracy, spreading freedom, or defeating
terror. All they are left with after three years of oppression in Iraq
and Afghanistan is more violence and more 'enemies' bent on our
destruction. Planting 'good news' about the wars won't change that.
The Pentagon has its own 'intelligence' branch is headed by an old
crony and Rumsfeld pal, Stephen Cambone, and has had its influence
elevated by a change in the order of succession which demoted the Army,
the Air Force, and the Navy to place the new Pentagon spy unit within
arm's reach of Karl Rove and the White House operators. This propaganda
program in Iraq is their invention. They will use the fake media to
attempt to control dissent and disarm their critics by focusing only on
what they perceive as successes.
The Bush regime has an
obsessive compulsion to control every bit of media that shows any
disagreement with their policies or actions. The attacks on 9-11 later
provided cover for their military takeover of our democracy. But it's
not just what they have done that's outrageous- I would suspect most
anyone in that office would covet unlimited power if granted by a weak
and compliant Congress as this president has enjoyed- it's the lack of
will or interest in our leaders in exercising their responsibility to
check the Executive's authority. The real 'enemy' of the state is
either one of apathy by our leaders, complicity, or both.
We
can't expect Rumsfeld or the Pentagon to police themselves and reform
their own meddling. With the full force of our nation's military
deployed in a seemingly intractable conflict in Iraq, the rest
stationed in Afghanistan and around the globe as mercenaries of the new
American imperialism, and Bush's eye on Iran, there is no time to wait
and see if they cross the line into suppressing dissenting views here
in the US, or muddling them with disinformation abroad which ultimately
ends up in the mainstream press here and elsewhere.
This Bush
regime sees opposition to their manufactured mandate to conquer as
threats to their consolidation of power. Woodrow Wilson was also
obsessed with good press during the war. He urged legislative action
against those who had "sought to bring the authority and 'good name' of
the Government into contempt." He worried in his declaration of war,
about "spies and criminal intrigues everywhere afoot" which had filled
"our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government."
During his presidency more than 2,000 American citizens were jailed for
protest, advocacy, and dissent, with the support of a compliant Supreme
Court. Although he upheld convictions surrounding the war which
curtailed free speech and dissent, Justice Holmes worried in a minority
opinion that, "A patriot might think that we were wasting money on
aeroplanes, or making more cannon of a certain kind than we needed, and
might advocate curtailment with success."
That's the real
danger in allowing the Pentagon to control news out of Iraq. What will
be their reaction when our protests of these Bush wars, as they change
public attitudes and erode support for the occupation, begin to
actually thwart what they've been insisting are matters of national
security? I think their notion of information warfare as 'firepower' in
the 'long war', has to be addressed and clarified before a culture of
crushing dissent is codified to further their own calculating
propaganda.
Ron Fullwood, is an activist from
Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief' : Military
Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying
the Price
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