Shocked, Shocked
by
Eric Margolis
by Eric Margolis
- I am shocked, shocked to learn the US military has spent over
$100 million planting stories in newspapers and on TV and radio
in Iraq, Afghanistan and various Mideastern countries.
This is the latest glaring example of the rapid Sovietization
of the US government. As the Taoists say, we have become what
we hated.
'Well, it's all part of information warfare,' explained red-faced
Pentagon spokesmen when this nasty business was revealed. Another
big lie. This is propaganda, pure and simple. But not just that.
Credulous US reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, cooped up under
the wing of US military forces, know only what the Pentagon
and its rent-a-journalist tell them. When you see reporters
from the major networks reporting in from Iraq, they are all
doing so from the safety of the fortified Green Zone and must
rely on press handouts from the US military. They have no more
ideas what's going on in Iraq than your average corn farmer
in Iowa.
So, what happens is that propaganda cooked up in Washington
by fancy, high-priced contractors (friends of the Bush Administration,
of course), stories like - 'Iraqis turn against terrorism and
embrace democracy,' or 'Afghanistan's women greet liberation
with joy..' – are then picked up by US reporters and sent back
to US media as news. Thus the Pentagon is shaping US media content
and the views of Americans. It's only a matter of time before
we have the Department of Truth.
- The upcoming elections in Iraq are mostly more political kabuki
staged by the US – fake elections that will ensure pro-US politicians
are 'elected.' Sunni voters who could scupper the poll will be
kept from the polls by chicanery and US troops. Nevertheless,
there are genuine political stirrings in Iraq. Individuals and
parties that do speak for many Iraqis have emerged from post-invasion
chaos and will one day become that nation's new generation of
leaders. But for now, Iraq looks ever more likely to be heading
into civil war between majority Shia and minority Sunnis, with
Kurds in the north attaining virtual independence.
 As
former US National Security Agency chief Gen William Odom recently
observed, the US occupation is driving Iraq into civil war.
When Bush preaches about 'government forces standing up,' what
he really means is Shia militias and murder squads who are quickly
turning Iraq into a larger version of the murderous civil
war I covered in El Salvador during the 1980's.
- Paris is again becoming a refuge for increasing numbers of thoughtful
Americans fed up by their nation's takeover by religious fanatics
and neo-fascist empire-builders. We may be looking at a new 'lost
generation' fleeing Dick Cheney's Mussolini America.
December
15, 2005
Eric
Margolis [send
him mail], contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media
Canada, is the author of War
at the Top of the World. See his
website.
Copyright
© 2005 Eric Margolis
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