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"Shock Doctrine" Spin in U.S., Burma and Beyond
By Bernard Weiner (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Bernard Weiner - Writer
Suppose you have a controversial project you wish to push through, but you're afraid that if you come right out and say what you're up to, there will be so many objections from other officials and ordinary citizens that you might never get a chance to implement your agenda.
But you're savvy about how influence-molding works and you know that with the right kind of massive publicity and P.R. campaigns, you probably can "spin" public perception in your direction.
So, on a foundation of lies and deception, you decide to launch your project, careful to keep absolutely secret the most controversial aspects. And then, under the table, you hire (a.k.a. "bribe") numerous journalists, opinion pundits and respected "consultants" to speak on behalf of your product.
It works! The public is snowed by the P.R. momentum and by the overwhelming consensus of the "experts," and your project takes off. This is how such things are done every day in the business and advertising world. What's the big deal?
THE LIES & DECEPTIONS
Well, as you've probably figured out, I'm talking about the way the CheneyBush Administration sold the Iraq War/Occupation to us citizens.
We've known for a long time about the various lies and deceptions that took America to war -- the supposed "weapons of mass distruction" that Saddam was supposed to possess but didn't, his alleged ties to al-Qaida that didn't really exist, his supposed but non-existent complicity in the 9/11 attacks, and so on. Eventually, even the Administration was forced to concede there were no WMD, no ties to 9/11, no relationship to Al Qaida, though it vowed never to let those inconvenient facts get in the way of continuing its occupation of Iraq. (And Cheney and his minions still continue to this day to hint at the old deceptions.)
Also revealed some years back was that the Administration secretly put various conservative TV/radio/print journalists on the payroll to write/speak favorably about various programs and policies emanating from the Executive Branch.
THOSE PENTAGON "EXPERTS"
What we didn't know about until the New York Times ( www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html ) broke the story a few weeks ago was that the CheneyBush Administration, to help sell the pending Iraq war to members of Congress and the citizenry at large, marshalled a huge phalanx of retired military officers and sent them out disguised as private, independent "experts" and "consultants" to deliver the pro-war spin the Administration wanted. The author of the story, David Barstow, used the term "media Trojan horse" to describe the impact of this deception.
Because the media, always eager to curry favor with the Administration, did not vet the bona fides of these "private consultants," the public had no knowledge of the retired officers' deep and abiding connection to the Pentagon. These ex-military officers received special briefings, including by Rumsfeld himself, on the Administration's daily spin points, and they either had or would soon be receiving high-paying jobs with various defense contractors.
What the public now knows is that the daily commentary and advice by the "military experts" -- supposedly independent analysts, free of any conflicts of interest -- helped "catapult the propaganda" (to borrow Bush's own term) in favor of war with Iraq.
And it worked: CheneyBush and their neo-con ideologues inside the Administration got U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq, controlled the oil flowing out of that country, created chaos and catastrophe from which their huge private-corporation sponsors could make huge pots of money, built the world's largest new embassy in Baghdad, and constructed permanent military bases inside that country from where the U.S. will help control the geopolitics of the greater Middle East for generations to come, etc. etc. All this presents a perfect illustration of Naomi Klein's thesis of "shock doctrine" and "disaster capitalism." ( www.crisispapers.org/essays8w/klein.htm )
This use of hired guns -- all those prestigious, smart-looking ex-generals and such -- to do their propaganda work for them is further confirmation of the mendacity, duplicity and illegality ( www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/29/8598 ) Bush&Co. employ to get their way.
www.crisispapers.org
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by John A.L. Hamilton
$86.72
Number of pages: 442
Publisher: Michael Russell Publishing Ltd
by Squadron Leader M. C. "bush" Cotton DFC OAM
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Publisher: Titania Publishing Co.
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