Read Jeff Goldstein on the media’s view of the pro’s and con’s of the US having an information operations strategy in Iraq.
And yet, (publicizing [to the Iraqi's] the depravity of a foreign terrorist who is responsible for many of the deaths of their countrymen, might help spur resistance to the insurgency) is met, instead, with furrowed brows and the thinly-veiled suggestion of impropriety—as if a campaign to discredit the enemy is somehow against the rules of wartime discourse (while a campaign to discredit our own Commander in Chief is a duty of every real and true patriot!).
This is suicidal nonsense, quite frankly, and it further illustrates my point about the subtle (and not so subtle ways) that the framing of the narrative of the war has can have an appreciable impact on its outcome. For Americans who aren’t political junkies, the WaPo’s intimation that something unsavory is happening here is the “lesson” many casual readers will take away from this story. And when such messages accrue, they can (and do) effect the public’s will to support the campaign.
Keep in mind that it’s very possible that this is a conflict that will either be won (or lost) in the hearts and minds of Araby, or else fought to the bitter death somewhere closer to home.
Yeah…caught that two days ago when it first came out. Total mischaracterization of what was happening as well as using quotes out of context to support his supposition that we were being propagandized in some illegaly or at least unsavory manner that smacks of Communist or fascist state apparatus.
The illegal war don’t you know.
Then my favorite things is to imply that Iraq had no link to terrorism before the invasion but the government keeps trying to link it in order to convince us poor dupes that Saddam was bad and in a bad war with terrorism, his badness just couldn’t be subborned anymore.
Of course, I had no idea I needed convincing of that fact considering I had just lived the last 11 years post Gulf War I and been aprised of his badness through out the entire period without some fascist republican government telling me the same.
But then, you know, what do you believe? Your lying eyes or that fellow that wrote this piece of garbage for the WAPO?
[...] Lex and kat discuss it here. [...]