Gee, whodda thunk!

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantnamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantnamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Full article at the NYTimes

From Yahoo News alerts:

Saturday, January 12, 2008, 1:15 AM PST
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait (AP) The top U.S. commander in Iraq says attacks there linked to Iranian explosive devices have sharply increased.

I DON’T THINK SO!! You have to wonder why the rhetoric has been stepped up since Bush’s visit to Israel. I’m guessing this latest report of Iranian explosive devices is bullshit, just like it was bullshit last year. Another recycled lie. C’mon, the least you could do is come up with some NEW propaganda!!

From the February 16,2007 LA Times:

And then today we get this from CNN:

Obviously CNN and evey other news outlet are most comfortable reporting any lies and fantasies this administration feeds them as truth…… without doing any fact checking.

Juan Cole gives us the 411 on the Iranian speedboat fantasy……….

The Bush administration’s assertion that 5 small Iranian boats confronted big, well-armed US ships in the Straits of Hormuz and threatened to blow up the American vessels is looking more and more like a serious error if not a Republican Party fabrication.

The episode featured prominently in the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, according to McClatchy:

“One of the most animated exchanges came when the candidates were asked whether they backed the Navy’s cautious response recently when Iranian boats reportedly harassed U.S. vessels in the Persian Gulf.

Huckabee said anyone who challenges the Navy again should be prepared to go to the “gates of hell.” Thompson said anyone testing the Navy might soon meet the “virgins” that Islamic terrorists expect to meet in heaven.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul called the bellicose language frightening and reminiscent of the reaction to an alleged naval exchange that led to the Vietnam War. “I would certainly urge a lot more caution than I’m hearing here tonight,” Paul said.

Romney cracked that Paul should stop reading Iranian propaganda, drawing what sounded like boos from the audience and a glare from Paul.”

So the Republicans are embarrassing themselves again, because there was not any reason to send anyone through the gates of hell. Moreover, Huckabee and Romney are not the ones who would suffer if Bush and Cheney managed to get up a skirmish with Iran. Our troops, kidnapped and held in the midst of a hostile Shiite population in Iraq, would be on the line. Getting them blown up for nothing is the opposite of patriotism.

Continue reading at Informed Comment

Can republicans not find anyone better’suited for the job than this loud-mouthed b*tch?

These people aren’t just a handful of folks out to ruin your friggin’ day, Mrs. Perino. They represent me. They represent the majority of Americans. If you want to talk about wasting time, try reading up on some history first, you bubble-headed skank!

Does he really think he’s fooling anyone other than that crappy twenty’something-percent that walks among us? You can’t get more delusional than this (Mitt Romney runs a close second in that race).

Bush: Iraq strategy sees good results

President Bush pauses as he listens to a reporters question during a news conference, Thursday…

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine - President Bush, presiding over a nation dispirited by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on Saturday cast both conflicts in terms of “encouraging news.” In stating his case, the president emphasized enemy deaths.

“Our new strategy is delivering good results,” Bush said of Iraq in his weekly radio address, taped at his parents’ summer home on the rocky coast of Maine.

The president said his buildup of U.S. forces in Iraq, designed to provide security for the Iraqi government, was taking hold and showing gains. He acknowledged again, though, that Iraq has made frustratingly slow political progress.

Bush’s comments came as Washington, like much of the nation, has shifted into vacation time. He said that in an otherwise slow news month, the war against terrorists rages on.

Bush’s address amounted to another appeal for patience and upbeat view of events.

BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer

Source: Yahoo! News

By Mike Whitney

The quality of Pentagon-propaganda is really deteriorating.

The War Dept.’s latest fraud appeared in this week’s newspapers under the ominous’sounding headline:

“US Kills Mastermind of Iraq Shrine”

The article is similar to hundreds of other stories we-ve seen in the passed few years boasting of the murder of an “alleged” terrorist kingpin whose evil deeds have prevented democracy from flourishing in Iraq.

Oh, please.

CNN: “Coalition troops killed the al Qaeda terrorist who masterminded the February 2006 attack on Samarra’s al-Askariya mosque and set off continuing violence and reprisal killings between Sunnis and Shiites, the U.S. military said Sunday.” Snip “Haitham Sabah al-Baderi, the al Qaeda emir of greater Samarra, was killed Thursday east of Samarra, said Rear Adm. Mark Fox during a news conference”. snip “Eliminating al-Baderi is another step in breaking the cycle of violence instigated by the attack on the holy shrine in Samarra,” Fox said. “We will continue to hunt down the brutal terrorists who are intent on creating a Taliban-like state in Iraq.” (CNN)

In truth, CNN has no idea who al-Baderi really was or whether he belonged to Al Qaida or not. They just jot down whatever the Pentagon spokesman tells them and then pass it off later as news. It’s the same with the rest of the media. They don-t care. They build their stories on statements from government officials and don-t bother looking for evidence. All they know is that al-Baderi is another unlucky victim in Bush’s war on terror who has been subsumed into the Pentagon’s propaganda war against the American people. That’s it.

More at Information Clearing House

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

Joe Haldeman, a Vietnam vet and award-winning science fiction writer, told the following story in the introduction to a 1986 sci-fi anthology:

A friend of mine in Vietnam took a sniper’s bullet in the back but his life was saved, at least for the time being, by his inability to spell: the bullet lodged in the dictionary he kept in his rucksack to help with letters home. The incident was written up in the Pacific Stars and Stripes, but somehow the dictionary had become a Bible; it was over his heart, not his spine; and the bullet had stopped on the world “peace.”

I love this story, which I view as three stories in one. The first story is what really happened. The second is the fictitious story. And the third story is about how and why someone decided the first story should be changed.

Veterans will likely appreciate the true story of Haldeman’s buddy. Some of them might take the fatalistic view, but regardless, the story’s ironic, and captures the absurdity of war - poor spelling and dumb luck saved the guy. Other people clearly prefer the second story. For them, it might be hopeful, but it also posits the existence of a God and an order to the universe, even in war. It feels like a reward for faith and trusting some higher power. Personally, I-ve always loved the third story the most, because I feel it encompasses both of the others, and I-m fascinated by the mindset that feels the need to essentially improve on the truth. (When I-ve told someone the “first” story, then told them it was re-written, it doesn-t take much prodding for them to guess the book became the Bible.)

Last year’s Letters From Iwo Jima was a stronger film than its complimentary film, Flags of Our Fathers, but both tried to tell true war stories. Flags of Our Fathers especially mirrors Haldeman’s tale. Examining the truth and mythology behind the famous photo at Iwo Jima, Flags… tried to tell all “three” stories. Whether it’s a war, a specific event, or a film or story about an event, some people definitely prefer that second story to the first, true one.

Haldeman’s tale touches on the nature of truth and storytelling. It’s a theme woven throughout the work of another Vietnam vet, Tim O-Brien. In his extraordinary collection of interrelated short stories, The Things They Carried, he has a piece called “How to Tell a Real War Story.” It relates several striking tales. O-Brien writes:
Read more »

Crossposted from Global Research:

The US government and Washington elites are aggressively ramping up their “war on terrorism” rhetoric and propaganda, stoking fear and paranoia in order to bolster their war agenda, and reinvigorate the mass public perception of new and growing “homegrown terrorism” threats to the US homeland.

The next phase of America’s war abroad (under the management of a post-Bush neocon/neoliberal consensus), and the deepening militarization of the US homeland towards a full police state, are well underway.

Who or what was behind the Fort Dix Six?

On May 8, 2007, six foreign-born Muslims were arrested during an attempt to purchase assault weapons, and accused of plotting a terror attack on Fort Dix (New Jersey), as well as an assault on a Pennsylvania Navy installation.

While evidence regarding this case continues to unfold, what is clear is that the FBI and US intelligence had been infiltrated and monitored over an extensive period, as early as January 2006. An unnamed “shadowy informer“, likely an intelligence asset, is the key figure behind this operation and the arrest.

An objective analysis of the Fort Dix incident leads to questions about US military-intelligence involvement, and the use of the incident as a pretext:

“There is no doubt that the actions of the US military around the world are provoking a level of disgust and anger that could well produce misguided terrorist attacks within the US itself. Nonetheless, the various terrorist A-plots- exposed by the Bush administration have virtually without exception been characterized by a similar lack of any real preparation for violence combined with the central role of a covert informant/agent provocateur.”

In each of these cases, the supposed conspiracy has been heavily publicized in a transparent bid to justify the ongoing military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and to create a climate of fear in order to suppress democratic rights in the US itself.

“The exposure of the latest alleged plot has coincided with an unprecedented political crisis for the administration. With the president’s standing in the polls falling to record lows and US military casualties in Iraq increasing as the quagmire in the occupied country deepens, the political motive for unveiling another supposed terrorist threat from within is abundantly clear.”

The Fort Dix suspects allegedly came to the attention of authorities after one of them was fingered by a Circuit City store manager while requesting to dub a terrorism training videotape from VHS to DVD. This bungling is reminiscent of the actions of the so-called 9/11 hijackers (all of them guided US intelligence assets), and suggests low-level and amateurish “patsies”, guided and set up by larger forces.

This foiled “spectacular” terror plot comes shortly after the bizarre Virginia Tech massacre (which, perhaps coincidentally, bears striking similarities to other “manchurian candidate” incidents such as the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley) successfully sparked fear across the country, and ignited new calls from citizens to “make our children safe”.

The clear political beneficiary of both the Fort Dix and V Tech episodes are the same: Homeland Security.

Read more »

Such bullshit. But it was ok when Georgie pointed to a map of Iraq showing where all the U.S. soldiers outposts were. An of course, the Pentagon will continue to post it’s propaganda.

The Pentagon will from today ban soldiers serving overseas from using popular video’sharing and social networking websites, claiming they are a security risk.

The Pentagon will continue to post its own videos on networking websites.
The US defence department said videos, recordings and messages uploaded by troops in the field on to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other websites posed a “significant operational security challenge”, and a drag on the military’s computer network.

Critics of the policy said it was designed to prevent troops either delivering bad news or receiving it from videos posted by Iraqi insurgents on the internet.

The US military has always barred its members from sharing information that could jeopardise their missions or safety, but the new policy creates a blanket ban on military personnel exchanging messages, pictures, video and audio with family and friends, which could also be seen by millions around the world.

Members of the military can still access the sites on their own computers - but Pentagon computers and networks are the only ones available to soldiers and sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More at The Telegraph

So they are tightening restrictions on soldier’s communication, they start a propaganda Youtube account, and it’s obvious they are blocking info on the news shows. In case you didn’t hear, 3 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq today, and one yesterday.

From Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK The U.S. Army has sharply tightened restrictions on soldiers’ blogs and other Web postings to make sure that sensitive military information does not appear online, according to Reuters.

The wire service reports that while soldiers in war zones are already restricted in their blogging, the new regulations could affect members of the armed service that have returned from war and may be blogging from home about their experiences.

Soldiers are now required (under threat of court-martial) to consult with their supervisors — as well as operational security officers — for their review of planned publications about war experiences. These reviews “will be needed for Web site postings, blog postings, discussions on Internet information forums and discussions on Internet message boards, according to the Army directive,” Reuters said. They will also apply to emails that are published in a public forum.

Separately, the Army has launched its own channel on YouTube, according to the Los Angeles Times, in an effort to combat the kind of content that appears on the Web sites of the extremist groups the Army is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the footage being made available includes “blistering firefights across rooftops, nighttime raids filmed through the green glow of night-vision devices and a ‘precision strike’ that wiped out an insurgent antiaircraft gun in a huge ball of fire.”