Wingers Struggle to Compute the Meaning of LA Times Iraq Propaganda Story

They don't seem to understand that Iraqi papers have been labelling the US propaganda pieces as "Advertisements." Unfortunately for the pro-war right wing, the Iraqis, who, of course, are frontline witnesses to what's going on in their country, are probably not going to fall for the "Who are you going to believe: Bush or your lying eyes?" tactic.

From Daimnation!, Canadian Damian J. Penny's right wing blog:

http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/005331.html

The propaganda war

This <story from the LA Times> is an outrage - if you believe the Americans should be forced to fight the Iraq war with one hand tied behind its back:

Positive articles about the war in Iraq written by U.S. troops have been appearing in Iraqi newspapers under the guise of independent journalism, part of a coordinated effort by the U.S. military to win over Iraqi civilians, according to military officials.

Officers in Iraq say the program is an essential element of an "information war" against an insurgency adept at spreading its message through local and international media, largely with violent acts. The newspaper articles promote the positive aspects of the United States-led coalition's work and encourage Iraqis to take part in the burgeoning democracy.

"This is a military program to help get factual information about ongoing operations into Iraqi news," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Baghdad. "Because this is part of our ongoing operations and an important part of countering misinformation in the news by insurgents, I can't provide details of what that entails. I want to emphasize that all information used for marketing these stories is completely factual."

The program has been run out of the Multinational Corps commanded by Lt. Gen. John R. Vines in Baghdad, with the help of a Washington-based contractor, Lincoln Group. The company translates the articles and markets them to Iraqi media outlets without indicating the material came from the U.S. military.

Of course, now that the program has been revealed (the Los Angeles Times broke the story yesterday), it stands to undermine the war effort by discrediting pro-American Iraqi media sources. I would never say the Times shouldn't have been allowed to report this story, but that doesn't mean I can't wish they didn't.


<Choice comment from the wingnut gallery:>

<<I remember reading a Moynihan comment to the effect that modern America is "defining deviency downwards", or something to that effect.

<<It would be just as relevant to say that America -- and the Western world in general -- is in the process of defining treason downward. An act that clearly results in a boost to the enemy's morale and/or fighting capability -- the very definition of treason -- can nowadays be spinned into "courageous dissent" or the "public's right to know". In fact, I'm not even sure what, if anything, can still be reasonably called "treason" in public without the caller being labelled a facist, or worse.>>

June 12, 2005

Blowback
...

Even before the Iraq invasion, you may recall, Rummy and the gang were scheming to create their own in-house propaganda and disinformation operation, to be called the Office of Strategic Influence. The program was nominally killed after the critics pointed out how easily the phony news it created could drift back into the domestic media. (This was back when the Democrats still had a foot in the door of power, and Rumsfeld had to back down every once in awhile.)

But the Donald soon made it clear he intended to push through the budgetary back door what he couldn't get through the front door. And after the Dems lost the Senate, he didn't even try too hard to conceal what he was doing. The occupation of Iraq -- and the money and lack of accountability it spawned -- put the Pentagon in the "strategic influence" business in a big way, with its own TV news operation (the Pentagon Channel), a Coalition-controlled Iraqi TV and radio network (now nominally in the hands of the Iraqi government, I presume, but still powered by Pentagon dollars and run by a U.S. vendor) and millions of dollars to hire PR firms and consultants to spin the coalition's propaganda to the Iraqi people.

The net benefit of all this in terms of strategically influencing the Iraqis -- or the rest of the Islamic world -- has been roughly zero, or maybe even a negative number. But the benefit to the Bush administration and the Republican Party is a different sum, harder to measure. For some time now, one of my pet suspicions has been that the Pentagon's psywar budget is both a hidden piggy bank and an R&D laboratory for the GOP's own political propaganda operations.

I have no proof of this. I didn't even have anything that could reasonably be called evidence, until today, when I came across this story:

http://billmon.org/archives/001900.html