In more than 3 years of war, there has never been a positive sighting of alleged terror mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi. This has led many to believe that he is merely a creation of Pentagon propagandists working with their agents in the western press. Colonel Derek Harvey strengthened those suspicions last week when he admitted in a Washington Post article that the military intentionally “enlarged Zarqawi’s caricature” to create the impression that the ongoing struggle against occupation was really a fight against terrorism. But, that is not the case. As Harvey notes, “The long term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but former regime types and their friends”.
The Pentagon has tried to discredit Col. Harvey, but the damage has already been done. The mask has been removed from the War Dept’s rather ineffective black-op, and the American public has a great opportunity to see the amount of energy that goes into fabricating a narrative to support an unpopular war.
The Zarqawi-myth is strikingly different from other examples of Pentagon propaganda. The Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman stories both followed a familiar pattern of exaggerating American bravery to shore up support on the home-front. This type of propaganda is harmless and can be expected to appear in virtually any conflict. So too, there’s nothing unusual about the Pentagon’s attempts to distance itself from its actions which resulted in the needless (but predictable) deaths of innocent civilians, like the bombing of wedding parties or the recent rampage in Haditha where a number Iraqi noncombatants were killed. All this is par for the course.
The Zarqawi case is vastly different from these traditional forms of propaganda. It is information-warfare aimed exclusively at the American people with the intention of manipulating their perceptions. It builds the case for war out of whole cloth. Zarqawi has become the central justification for the ongoing occupation; a threatening, spectral figure who embodies the evils of terrorism. His image has overshadowed the obvious self-serving motives which led to the invasion and the subsequent destruction of Iraqi society.
Undoubtedly, many of the generals who are calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation must be uncomfortable with this deliberate effort to deceive the American people. Not surprisingly, support for the war has eroded in direct proportion to the administration’s loss of credibility. The lies simply haven’t helped at all. The exposing of Zarqawi is bound to further erode whatever small amount of faith still remains in government’s trustworthiness.
The influence of foreign fighters in Iraq has always been trivial. In the sieges of Falluja and Tel Afar less than 3% of those captured were non-Iraqis, and even those figures are in doubt. Never the less, a disproportionate number of articles appearing in the media have focused on uncorroborated claims of suicide bombings, beheadings, etc in an attempt to demonize an enemy that is mostly a Pentagon invention. The lesson we draw from this is powerful; nothing the military says can be trusted.
The civilian leadership, particularly Donald Rumsfeld, who we expect has authored many of these clever propaganda-schemes, should consider now whether the damage to their credibility has been worth the small gains they may have made in hoodwinking the public. It may be altruistic to think that “honesty is the best policy”, but clearly, deception as policy has some glaring shortcomings as support for the war continues to diminish.
The media’s role in facilitating the Zarqawi charade cannot be overstated. New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins has been singled out for running a dubious letter from Zarqawi “boasting of suicide attacks” on the front page of the Times. Filkins sheepishly admitted that he was “skeptical” about the letter but that didn’t stop him (or 1,400 newspapers across the world) from using the piece to spread unsubstantiated claims about an imaginary Muslim terrorist.
Filkins, of course, is a very bright guy and knew that he was being used to promote the racist themes that have engendered greater suspicion of Muslims and fueled public hysteria. Still, Filkins is just one small cog in the mighty corporate propaganda-matrix which spews out anti-Arab hatred on a daily basis. Zarqawi is merely a way of vilifying the people who occupy the lands which possess the resources required to maintain western prosperity.
In my own research, I have spend a few evenings going over hundreds of articles on Zarqawi to find anything that might confirm his existence. As noted earlier, there are no reliable eyewitness accounts. What we find instead, is sometimes as many as 2,200 articles appearing on any given day pointing to Zarqawi’s involvement in a bombing without any tangible proof of his authenticity.
The news has simply become another “faith based” operation like the Bush administration.
Zarqawi-related news is devoid of any factual content. The accepted policy of the news agencies (without exception) is to reiterate the same Pentagon talking points, suspicions, and baseless claims as their peers. This gives us some insight into the collaborative relationship between the corporate media and their allies in the defense establishment. The Pentagon’s apparitions immediately become part of the national dialogue completely unchallenged by anyone in the news industry.
We should not expect that the Zarqawi myth will disappear anytime soon. The Bush administration has demonstrated a stubborn determination to cling to their fantasies no matter how threadbare they become. Besides, as Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt noted, “The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date”.
Indeed, it probably is.
Mike is a freelance writer living in Washington state.
Is Anyone Surprised At ANYTHING This Administration Does Any
I can remember when, while watching the Watergate hearings as a 14 year old young man, I began to realize that our government was not the stalwart, upstanding, transparent system I had been fooled into thinking it was by countless classroom indoctrinations.
I sincerely hope that there are millions of Americans who are today recognizing the exact same thing and experiencing that sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs that they are contributors to the madness. When will we as a collective group LEARN not to trust any government official? When we will as a collective group not simply demand--but ENSURE--that "We The People" control our own destinies and not some elitist war profiteers?
When will we as a collective group recognize that organized religion is truly the opiate of the people and is every bit as dangerous as a loaded gun, a nuclear weapon or an imperialistic president?
May the Gods have mercy upon all of us too stupid to recognize truth when it bitchslaps us across the face.
by
Amer Ken Paytreott (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 6:21:11 AM
We know it's very hard to insult the intelligence of the American people. So why do we still complain about the Pentagon inventing some self-serving story for a self-serving populace? They do it because it works for them.
So, if we want this to stop we have to go after the media, not the DOD. Not so much to make the media scapegoats for what they really are(no matter how tempting a proposition that may seem), but to do the only thing left that will work against them.
Start to organize, especially in the largest cities, to pass out literature and man informational picketing lines in front of and around the media outlets in town. Campaign for truth -- and against what's become business as usual -- relying heavily on verbatim government reports and manufactured news by manufactured reporters from the manufacturers themselves. We've been forced to eat this sh*t long enough.
The turnout for these demonstrations doesn't have to be along radical lines. If the polls are anywhere near accurate, there are people in the Center and on the Right who are also growing increasingly tired of a lazy and submissive media. They resent reporters who really aren't reporters, the arrogance and self-servingness of pundits, the politics of fear we see nightly on the local news and twice as much during sweeps weeks, or just simply hate being told what and what not to think.
We have an election year going on as well. That can only help the cause.
It'll take a lot of organization -- and making a coalition of disparate groups work -- to pull this off. Nevertheless, going after the MSM does not preclude organizing boycotts of their biggest advertisers. In fact, we'll have to hit them in the pocketbook if we want to achieve any success at all.
It's not too late, but the window of opportunity is closing fast.
by
lindbergh (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 20 comments)
on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 11:41:32 AM
the fact that before the war there were many articles about the pentagon talking directly to Bush about getting rid of Zarquari, by taking out his terror camps, and Bush saying NO. NO to killing the terrorist.
by
Stu (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, April 21, 2006 at 6:39:03 AM
