I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
the media can't help themselves. Second-guessing psy-ops is bad for business.
cheney them!
wasn't that event also staged by having Chalabi's militia in the square?
I saw a picture (that some of your readers surely know of and know where to find) that showed tanks had encircled the square and the group of Iraqis who were there were identified as men who were part of Chalabi's militia.
It was one of those defining moments for me, like the picture of the "rioters" in Dade County who, it turns out, were staffers for Republican politicians.
but perhaps this "revelation" will mean B/C 2004 can't use the statue toppling in their ads?
It should have been taken as a hint of troubles to come. If we had to manufacture that moment, it means we were unlikely to get the kind of support needed to stabilize Iraq.
If Iraqis wouldn't even do something like that, what would they do?
It should have been taken as a hint of troubles to come. If we had to manufacture that moment, it means we were unlikely to get the kind of support needed to stabilize Iraq.
If Iraqis wouldn't even do something like that, what would they do?
It was pretty obvious at the time. There weren't that many Iraqis there, I seem to recall, even with embedded cameras trying to give an impression of a spontaneous outburst.
where is firdos square?
just another dumb american.
i hope the dems. use some of these images, the flight deck, the flag over the face, the exciting green images of jessicas rescue, at a moment when things were twisting ugly on the ground. all premier examples of americas power, might, and in the hands of bushCo. xtreme arrogance.
i hope bush read the part where it states, Pride cometh before the Fall.
The press whores knelt at the knee
Of the present powers that be.
They displayed no shame
As they sought to inflame
The chickenhawks' march of folly.
Very nice point about psyops, Atrios.
Shouldn't there be a law by now outlawing the use of the military for electoral purposes?
Recall also that they claimed the flag came from the World Trade Center.
That statue business was bogus from the start, and you could tell. Especially when someone on the internet (here? Tom Tomorrow? some link from here or Tom?) showed the wide angle view of the square, lined with tanks, as "buck" discusses above. It was pretty egregious, but the "defining moment" for me was when I watched the "Shock and Awe" campaign on NBC and heard Tom Brokaw gloating, "In a few days, we're going to own this country." (My quote is not exactly correct, but the "we're going to own this country" is dead-on.) That comment turned my stomach almost as much as the sight of us bombing the hell out of Baghdad did. To quote Lila Lipscome in Fahrenheit 911: "For what? For what?"
"but perhaps this "revelation" will mean B/C 2004 can't use the statue toppling in their ads?"
Only if America is paying attention. Is America paying attention? Don't nearly half of them *still* think Bush is doing a fine job? Aren't nearly half of them still getting their information from Faux News? Is being broadcast there? Or is it still propoganda as usual there?
all fools can do is to contrive
the sheep will bay in approval
wisdom screams onto the deaf
the wrong is easily believable
so if BushCo chooses to co-opt such imagery for it's own purposes, makes others feel the need to do same:
In the July 5 issue of the the left-wing magazine the Nation, an ad on the back page by Pleasevote.com depicts President Bush eating a headless child. The ad gives no explanation, and the Web site pleasevote.com — which displays the same image — only says the image is based on Francisco de Goya's "Saturn Devouring one of his Children." The site, which says it is "a call to vote the Bush administration out of office," encourages people to download the image free and, "alert friends and interested parties to its availability."
I'm unable to find or open any "pleasevote.com" websites, I guess Ashcroft found it first....
Let's not forget that while the military was exploiting this "target if opportunity," people were looting an unguarded nuclear waste dump and countless armories.
When the Russian mathematician, Ouspensky, was first
studying with Gurdjieff, he had great trouble understanding
Gurdjieff s insistence that most people are machines and totally
unaware of the objective world around them. Then, one day,
after World War I had begun, Ouspensky saw a truck full of
artificial legs. These artificial legs were being sent to the frontline
hospitals, for soldiers whose legs had not even been blown
off yet, but whose legs would be blown off. The prediction that
these legs would be blown off was so certain that the artificial
legs were already on their way to replace the natural legs. The
prediction was based on the mathematical certainty that millions
of young men would march to the front, to be maimed and murdered,
as mindlessly as cattle marching into a slaughterhouse.
In a flash, Ouspensky understood the mechanical nature of
ordinary human consciousness.
Boo hoo. Psyops are fact of life in modern warfare. What they did was correct and for the right reasons. Quit whining about it like it was some sort of conspiracy.
"Ultimately, a Marine recovery vehicle toppled the statue with a chain, but the effort appeared to be Iraqi-inspired because the psychological team had managed to pack the vehicle with cheering Iraqi children."
pleasevote.com: http://snipurl.com/7hzo
The schools! The schools!
Was it Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions that used "*" as a literary device?
Can't imagine why I thought of that just now.
.
Boo hoo. Psyops are fact of life in modern warfare. What they did was correct and for the right reasons.
A few of us resent being the targets of a psychological warfare operation. We think such ops should be reserved for use against our enemies.
But then I guess it's easy to understand why you think it's OK. As a Bush supporter, you dig being lied too.
fauxreal--Yes, that's right. It started on DemocraticUnderground, I believe. Someone posted a picture from the toppling alongside another pic of Chalabi & his militia just after deplaning in Iraq. The image of one of his top lieutenants in the latter pic seemed to closely match one of the guys hooraying the toppling of the statue.
Nothing necessarily unlikely or inherently conspiratorial about this--Chalabi's lieutenants are as entitled as anyone to be present at such an event--but taken together with the other psy-ops aspects it was pretty hard not to conclude the whole thing was a staged event from the first.
We're...SURPRISED?? After Jessica Lynch???
Private Lynch!
You're wanted in Make-up in FIVE! ON the double private!
A few of us resent being the targets of a psychological warfare operation. We think such ops should be reserved for use against our enemies.
But then I guess it's easy to understand why you think it's OK. As a Bush supporter, you dig being lied too.
--------
Don't be a nitwit. That soldier would have concieved and performed the same actions in that square whether Bush, Gore, or whoever else was president.
It WAS a conspiracy. A small group of people plotted to carry out this act in secret. What more do you need to make it a conspiracy. Dont drink the cool-aid.
I hate these people. I really do. The whole scurvy lot of them. I saw F911 last night and spent half the time squirming with revulsion at the bastards up on the screen.
I know tomorrow is going to be a nail-biting horror show with my relatives who have MSNBC and FOX dripped directly into their brains. "The schools!" "Michael Moore lies!" "The Clenis!"
Fuck. Happy 3rd of July, everyone.
Does anyone still believe that DoD really scrapped the proposed "Office of Strategic Influence?"
Psyops in Iraq suffers from one thing no one wants to address - it's trite. C'mon, the only other thing they didn't try was to raise the US flag by having five or six marines push it high.... Repetitions of (relatively) unstaged events from WWII resonate for about ten minutes and then the public senses just how artificial they are. Cheering crowds? Pull back that camera and discover how staged the moment, and how -badly- staged. Outraged townspeople stopping the theft of democracy? Pull back that camera and show the white collar Congressional aides attacking civic action.
Third rate psyops isn't actually very helpful - and that is what we are looking at here.
I remember the "oh, shit" sort of reaction when the American flag went up -- and the commentators saying it was just an overzealous soldier who got excited, quick, let's put up an Iraqi flag.
Assholes. And the reason it's an outrage, you stupid fucking trolls, is that people are dying for a war in which, every day, some seminal part is being revealed to be a lie. No moment any of us could, perhaps, try to remember with pride is going to be left at the end of this.
Jesus. Get a grip or go back under your bridges.
A.
Yes, but . . .
CNN's ratings got REALLY close to Fox's share while they showed it.
And isn't that what's most important?
Come back, Ted Turner, and bring Tom Johnson with you.
This stuff was done for the Bush'04 campaign.
And, truth be told, the torture was part of this stuff. It was imposed in panic because the insurgency threatened the campaign's prospects.
OT (or OnT, as it may be), from the Khaleej Times:
"Meanwhile the caretaker government, which has identified security as a top priority since being handed power by the US-led coalition on Monday, said it would announce new powers to deal with Iraq’s 14-month-old insurgency soon.
“The national safety law will be announced very shortly,” Barham Saleh, deputy prime minister for national security, said in an interview with Al-Iraqiya television broadcast late Friday.
The government said its justice and human rights ministers would hold a press conference at 5:00 pm (1300 GMT) Saturday on the new national safety law.
“This law will give the government the capability of imposing emergency laws in specific areas and for set periods to deal with terrorist threat,” he said.
President Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar said in an interview published Wednesday that the “national safety” law would be “less repressive than emergency laws but with severe penalties for people carrying out terrorist acts”."
It should have been taken as a hint of troubles to come. If we had to manufacture that moment, it means we were unlikely to get the kind of support needed to stabilize Iraq.
If Iraqis wouldn't even do something like that, what would they do?
And some people booed Michael Moore when he accepted his Oscar for BFC.
He said we live in fictitious times and we have a fictitious administration.
Oh, Michael. Our very own Cassandra.
Vote these charlatans out.
Somewhat relevant to the topic - that tool Kristof writes today, with a straight face, in the NYT op ed:
I'm not a big fan of Al Jazeera, which tends to be emotional and nationalistic. As U.S. Lt. Josh Rushing astutely notes in "Control Room," Al Jazeera is the Arab version of the Fox News Channel...
Cue that footage of Dan "You Bet I'm Gonna Be a Propagandist for My Country" Rather. And that's as objective as media whores in the USA get?
Dean/Kerry '04
www.draftdeanforvp.org
Sign the petition.
Out of Iraq
The Chimp didn't cut and run.
He created an ersatz union.
The Iraqis he tagged
Are holding the bag,
Like the women he left with a bun.
Somehow i don't think this would have happened if Gore was president.
For the simple reason Gore would not have been a nit wit and sent our troops into Iraqi for some bullshit dumbass motherfucking worthless reason.
I HATE you motherfuckers who have never been in the military and encourage the deployment of my fellow grunts for this type of shit.
Say this kind of shit in front of me * and I will kick your ass from here to shinola.
6 Troops died today because of idiots like YOU.
Wasn't the square also just in front of the hotel in which most of the press were residing so the cameras could just point from the windows and balconies? It looked contrived then and now looks trite. Wolfie actually had a point the other day, except that the reason why the bad news is not covered is because of lack of courage by the press, as opposed to lack of good news.
The Office of Strategic Influence was closed several months before the war...Or was it. No, no Rumsfeld said it was closed and I believe that what he said was true...Or was it all part of a strategically influenced campaign to make us BELIEVE that it was closed. No, it was closed because it got too much press...Or did it. No, it's no longer around and everytime we heard a comment it was a truthful comment, not one intended on being of strategic influence...Or was it.
Now, for extra credit, someone should go back and dig up all of the posts from the right side of the blogosphere attacking the America-hating libs for expressing their skepticism over the statue toppling in real-time.
There's a very interesting sequence about the statue in the film Control Room -- showing a lot more about the staging than has been available heretofore.
The fallen statue image is on the cover of Hitchens' book about our "victory" over our former ally Saddam.
Somehow i don't think this would have happened if Gore was president.
----------
Then you are a moron. Psyops does it's job no matter who the CIC is.
-------
For the simple reason Gore would not have been a nit wit and sent our troops into Iraqi for some bullshit dumbass motherfucking worthless reason.
-------
Your opinion of the war is irrelevent. The reasons were good enough.
--------
I HATE you motherfuckers who have never been in the military and encourage the deployment of my fellow grunts for this type of shit.
-----
Your emotional state is of no importance to the issue at hand either.
-----
Say this kind of shit in front of me * and I will kick your ass from here to shinola.
-----
Internet tough guys are always so amusing 
-----
6 Troops died today because of idiots like YOU.
----
*yawn* Troops die in conflict, and the casualtie rate in this conflict has been very low.
*
Fat anal cyst motherfuckers are the funniest of all.......
* is doing an excellent job as "right-wing guy" Well done. I especially like the "keyboard commando" stance and the "troops die" non-chalance. I give it a 9.
6 Troops died today because of idiots like YOU.
----
* - 10:01 am
Because I'm an "idiot", I need you to trace the linkage step by step between their death and me.
Your turn. 
I really don't see what the big deal is. The flag raising over Iwo Jima was staged too.
There's a billion good reasons to hate Bush, and 860+ reasons to think the invasion was a bad idea. This just doesn't rate for me.
Do I have to turn in my liberal card now?
can someone tell me how sully can actually post his nonsensical psycho-babble and not actually have his head explode from the absolutely incredible contradictions rumbling around up there?
Hey, you can't make a new Iraq with a few minor casualities, like say, a thousand American young men and women, but hey, we made Iraq into a democracy to the joyful cheers of a grateful Iraqi people!!
What?
No joyful cheers?
No democracy?
Oh well, * shouldn't worry -- we have at least another thousand men who can die in Iraq! Our acceptable rate of casualities hasn't been reached yet....
"'Six troops died today'...and * says 'yawn'...."
Okay, imagine a President Gore instigating a disaterous invasion and occupation in Iraq, based on lies of course.
Now imagine it came to light that toppling that statue was all staged as the SCLM played along.
Are we expected to believe that Rush, FOX, et al would be all, 'oh, heh heh heh, that's what happens during war - psyops are part of that. Gore is doing a great job, he brought freedom to the Iraqi people, and criticizing the president just gives comfort to our enemies!'
ot: whatever happened to reggie the
registration bus?
did eddie g. drive it into a
ditch?
Look guys, I'm only writing as a right-winger becuase you KNOW that's what they'll say. They don't give a damn about the soldiers or this country. They only know that whatever bush says is right and anything else is leftist propaganda. If it bothered you, it should since they DO think like that. They DO hate the fact that they were lied to but can't blame bush so they blame anyone else they can think of...That "liberal media" those "lefties" Clinton is the favorite. But get used to it because they're just that insane. That I was able to goad you all into responding just shows how insane their point of view is.
OT
Bush trying to use churches in his campaign.
http://tinyurl.com/ytsxl
Even Southern Baptists are balking at this idea.
I really think this whole war was a PSYOPS campaign that went bad for Chimpy. Between the media collaboration and the faux attempts to get a real coalition this whole deal was stage managed for America's populace.
Someone, maybe Rove, forgot to tell the Iraqis...
"That I was able to goad you all into responding just shows how insane their point of view is."
Yeah, excuse me for thinking that the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers wasn't incredibly funny.
*yawn* Troops die in conflict, and the casualtie rate in this conflict has been very low.
We've taken note of your flippant attitude towards human life (and poor spelling). Your willingness to believe in and help promote 'the Big Lie' (and evil, in general) will be a greatly needed asset for us in the coming years.
Congratulations! You have successfully passed all of our tests and will be one of the first to receive the mark of the beast following the November 'elections'.
Bwahahahahaha!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Sad that truth has been the "casualtie" of the entire bush regime.
Fuck them all up the ass--Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Meyers, the military collaborators, etc.-- with long, jagged objects sideways.
There. I feel so much better.
ot: whatever happened to reggie the
registration bus?
did eddie g. drive it into a
ditch?
Apparently, still around... but just not getting all the media whoring it got before.
It's in PA for the 4th Scroll down to the "Cheney" Blurb.
"i hope the dems. use some of these images, the flight deck, the flag over the face, the exciting green images of jessicas rescue, at a moment when things were twisting ugly on the ground. all premier examples of americas power, might, and in the hands of bushCo. xtreme arrogance."
--Ahhh, but that would take shrewdness, balls, and an actual will to fight to win on the Democrats' part.
--I've been watching the establishment Democrats in action now for over 17 years. They have hardly ever--if ever--displayed such qualities.
Hi there.
Remember me?
I'm one of your faithful trolls who spews shit to rile you.
Why do I do this?
'Cause I myself am full of shit. I can't help myself.
Anyway, I can't think of anything to say right now to rile you guys (other than I want to suck my beloved Dubya's cock and swallow every drop of his cum), so I'll just sit here with my finger up my ass, until I can think of something.
toby, well done chanelling *'s essence.
poor guy sez: Somehow i don't think this would have happened if Gore was president.
to which * replies: Then you are a moron. Psyops does it's job no matter who the CIC is.
That first was the kind of statement referred to as "counterfactual" or "hypothetical." I can already hear your headless counter-argument! that since it is "counter-factual" it obviously has no value. When an honest rhetorician can easily imagine useful counter-factual arguments in the general form of "Should we do such-and-such again? Suppose we hadn't done it in the first place."
So what you're saying is, if Gore had been elected, and consequently the U.S. invasion of Iraq never took place then Psyops "would have done its job" and staged the phony statue show anyway. So therefore poor guy is a "moron." Mm yeah, sounds good.
Alas * descended to:
The reasons were good enough.
(this would be Arthur Schopenhauer, Art of Controversy, Chapter One, Sec. 3, Stratagem XIV, non causae ut causae.)
and:
Your opinion of the war is irrelevent... Your emotional state is of no importance to the issue at hand either.
(op. cit., Chapter One, Sec. 3, Stratagems VIII and XXXVIII, argumentum ad personam.)
But * did write something quotable:
*yawn* Troops die in conflict...
The "*yawn*" is so charming, with the little stars and all... May I quote you to each and every soldier I meet for the next four months? They should be aware how much you Bush worshipers of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders really care.
W. Kiernan, I'd rate you a 4 if we could rate. Well done.
*'s rebuttal? - "*Yawn* Kierkegard happens."
Welcome to the Puppet Show!
(Please have your sound on when you click)
Notice the picklering in the first couplet: The Army's own investigation indicted psyops as not helping, "but" [!] we got a graphic out of it.
I AM LOOKING FOR MY LINK! BUT WHEN THIS HAPPENED, THEY SAID IT WAS THE FLAG THAT FLEW OVER THE PENTAGON ON 9/11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it us or does "psy-ops" always turn out to be a sickly combination of the worst in entrenched intellectually-justified racism and the slimy American dream of a secret weapon easily and quickly fighting our wars for us?
Somebody out there used to work for them.
IT WAS THE PENTAGON FLAG!!!!!
http://ddubs.blogspot.com/2004/0...now-
living.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/wo...sp?
story=396043
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/04...411-
Statue.html
"It was a crazy experience. A lot of people — Iraqi people — downstairs below us chanting, and just being able to do that … I'm still blown away," Chin said.
"And the flag — it was on the Pentagon when it got hit on 9/11. That was the same flag, and me being from New York, it kind of all goes together a little bit. It was a team effort, which made it even better, you know," he said.
IT WAS THE PENTAGON FLAG!!!!!
http://ddubs.blogspot.com/2004/0...now-
living.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/wo...sp?
story=396043
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/04...411-
Statue.html
"It was a crazy experience. A lot of people — Iraqi people — downstairs below us chanting, and just being able to do that … I'm still blown away," Chin said.
"And the flag — it was on the Pentagon when it got hit on 9/11. That was the same flag, and me being from New York, it kind of all goes together a little bit. It was a team effort, which made it even better, you know," he said.
Here ya go, Dave:
http://tinyurl.com/2brkj
Did anybody read Krauthammer's column on Cheneys "Go "*" Yourself" comment? Between "*" and Chuck, my blood pressure's really up this morning!
Anyone get the symbolism of planting the flag, be it on Iwo or on Saddam's bronze head? It's not victory. It's conquest. It's an ancient symbol and it means uncontested theft.
IT WAS THE PENTAGON FLAG!!!!!
http://ddubs.blogspot.com/2004/0...now-
living.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/wo...sp?
story=396043
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/04...411-
Statue.html
"It was a crazy experience. A lot of people — Iraqi people — downstairs below us chanting, and just being able to do that … I'm still blown away," Chin said.
"And the flag — it was on the Pentagon when it got hit on 9/11. That was the same flag, and me being from New York, it kind of all goes together a little bit. It was a team effort, which made it even better, you know," he said.
if psych ops failed so miserable with the Iraqis why would they think it would work over here, The human mind is evolving and many people have learned how to recognize manipulative propaganda campaigns rather quickly (we've been exposed to it for at least half of a century). So many will not be controlled by such measures which means Powers That Be must result to other more draconian methods of control...torture, shock and awe etc...
Someone needs to do our country a favor and SHOOT Kraphammer.
IT WAS THE PENTAGON FLAG!!!!!
http://ddubs.blogspot.com/2004/0...now-
living.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/wo...sp?
story=396043
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/04...411-
Statue.html
"It was a crazy experience. A lot of people — Iraqi people — downstairs below us chanting, and just being able to do that … I'm still blown away," Chin said.
"And the flag — it was on the Pentagon when it got hit on 9/11. That was the same flag, and me being from New York, it kind of all goes together a little bit. It was a team effort, which made it even better, you know," he said.
Here's a wider shot of the event.
http://
kirghizlight.blogspot.com...880542608711416
it was obvious to a lot of people in the u.s. that the statue toppling was a staged event...and they couldn't even do that properly. the statue was secured too well. the marines had to bring in heavy equipment to pull it down and even then they had trouble. no one could possibly think the iraqi crowd could pull that statue down by themselves..and no one could possibly imagine those people who were under heavy siege would have the incentive to knock it down. they had other things on their minds like SURVIVAL.
Doctored photo from the square
Delecti-referring to our comment at 11:02, "psy-ops" is (we think) a fancy word for the old well-exposed Achilles' heels of empire, like the idea that the Japanese cannot fly aircraft. It is all about a superiority blind spot and more for the benefit of the cigar-chewing militechnocrats discussing it with pride over whiskey than the real detriment of Our Little Brown Brothers. Be nice to hear from a retired psyops person who disagrees intelligently (obviously they might be restricted in successful examples they could list). But there is also the trend of the superweapon, and of our worship of us through our weaponry, that category psyops fits snugly too.
THE REAL UPRISING
On April 9th, the media showed Saddam Hussein?s statue in Baghdad?s Fardus Square being ?spontaneously? demolished by what appeared to be hundreds of ordinary Iraqis.
This is a lie.
Very few were there
All the published photographs were close ups. A long shot photograph taken for the Reuters News Agency was equally available to our ?free? press. It showed fewer than 200 people in the square, most of whom were US Marines and the international press. The square is sealed off and guarded by US tanks
In the early months of the war CNN had a few stationary cameras throughout Baghdad with a live feed available online. (like the one of that corner in NY) I can't find them anymore so I assume they're "no longer operable".
But...I happened to have those camera feeds open in different windows online that morning while talking to a friend. I was watching what looked like a hell of a firefight (IN BAGHDAD!) on one of the cameras. On another one, in the park that's now famous - I noticed a group of marines just milling about. No Iraqis at all.
I turned my TV to CNN. No news about the fighting in Baghdad.
The feed showing the firefight started breaking up and then went dead.
Then slowly a few Iraqi men started coming into view on the other camera, conversing with the marines at the foot of the statue. Everyone knows the rest...
CNN television went live to the Saddam statue scene and I remember feeling like I was in some kind of bizarre alternate universe.
*
Where's my Grecian Formula?
Rush said the war would be over when the Iraqi's dragged Saddam;s head thru the streets.I heard that on his show 2 days before the statue was pulled over. Anyone remember the picture of one of Chalabi's people riding the head as it was pulled thru the square? And it was the next week that Bush landed on the carrior.
Uncle $cam...thank a million for your post. I had forgotten all about Ouspensky and Gurdjieff and I promise you I will get hold of their works as soon as I can. Cheers...samlex
Fictitious war, fictitious reasons, fictitious support for the troops, fictitious oil revenues, fictitious seizure of Saddam, fictitious "Mission Accomplished", fictitious toppling of the statue, even a fictitious turkey with the troops.
About the only thing real about this war is the incredible cost in money, suffering and death.
... and I would still like to know who the hell this man is.
Hey Newsweek, why didn't you answer any of my letters about him? Thanks for all the great investigative reporting.
As the man says.... bastards.
Lime Rickey--You ever consider musical comedy?
Well, it looks like we've found our friends new trolling identity: At least "*" is slightly more obtuse than "Sockie McPuppet." (* of course being how Doonsbury draws GHWB, GWB being a * with Cowboy hat, and then a Legionaires helmet)
Incidentally, Toby never did write to me expressing why he worried about my health. Genuine concern, or feeble cop out designed to simply excuse his transference to another identity? Only time will tell.
This troll though is as stupid as him, although we have to also wait and see if it's AM/RV/Stunt Girl again, or Toby's new threads. In fact his very first comment about sums up the ignorance:
'Psyops are fact of life in modern warfare.'
Except... ahah ha ha, that was the image which was supposed to be signalling the end of the War(fare).
Of course, you could always claim that it's the beginning of the war for hearts and minds in Iraq: but firstly, isn't smug hindsight what you accuse the liberals of? "Oh, you didn't know we'd fuck up so badly before hand, you just wanted us too!". Well, * and plebs like him before Saddam's regime fell were expecting flowers and thumbs up... so you can't claim that piece of psyops was part of a war for public opinion in Iraq which you only became aware of later.
And secondly, if you do try and claim that... well, it just shows how truly moronic US policy has become. "I know, lets set up a scene showing how much Iraqi's welcome us, because if we do, Iraqi's will actually believe that's what they feel, instead of what their lying hearts tell them".
*, for services in the endless defense of the indefensible, we salute you!
It was "widely assumed". That makes it "factesque".
As usual, our media placed the propaganda on front pages, and in the leading stories on TV news, but the "retraction" never makes its way onto center stage.
How many people in the American public will EVER know how much of a fake this "icon" of the Iraq is? Of course, our media give not a shit over this, because communication of the truth has about zero to do with what they regard as their basic mission, whatever that may be. Cf. The New York Times, in toto.
Sometimes I wish our media had only one face so I could spit in it.
Damn, now you say you're fake? So now, knowing that, I can't quote you all over the place as an example of how awful-b-b-b-bad those nasty rightwingers are. Knowing it's fake and all.
Oh wait! So what if I know it's fake? Why Hell yes I can! And if you don't like what I'm saying then you can go f&%k yourself!
And while we're on this topic, howzabout that icky-icky ad on the back cover of The Nation Magazine, that depicted Our President gobbling the raw flesh of a beheaded child? It's over in the other thread.
See Novak got in front of the teevee camera and opened up with that image, which demonstrated how Democrats, one and all, are depraved. So who are "pleasevote.com," who can afforrd a back-page ad on a (small) national magazine but not even a single web page to go along with their domain name? If you do a "WHOIS" lookup you find that the owners of this strangely unused domain name are hidden by a "Whois protection service."
Now I'm not going to come right out and say there's 100% certain proof that the whole thing's a set-up. No. But I am old enough to remember that spy Genius G. "Gee" Gordon Liddy and his team of stealth Ninjas. When they broke into the Watergate, they wore rubber gloves to protect against leaving fingerprints. And also, to facilitate access to and from the crime scene, they stuck a bigfat hunka duct tape across the locks on the stair doorways; and when the security guard found it and tore it off ("heh, those a**holes aren't gonna steal anybody's typewriters out of here tonight!"), they stuck a second piece a duck tape crost the lock. So you can see the similarity of style. A rather expensive ad, with a nasty picture, just teevee camera size, directing readers to a non-existent web site, just in time for Mr. Novak's this week's star turn.
Come on, Novak, you mean you couldn't find any insulting real anti-Bush ads? How about this one? It even features a picture of Evil Dictator Adolf Hitler right up along side Saint George II! The music's nice too.
George W. Bush psyop'ed his own people!!1!1!
One more reason for us to continue teaching media literacy to our friends, family and neighbors. People who can learn to see through scare-tactic headlines and psyops are much less prone to being manipulated by those pissants.
I recommend a piece on Gavin de Becker's website (www.gdbinc.com) about media literacy. He's the guy who wrote "The Gift of Fear." It's mroe about tuning out the scare-tactics of the local news, but the lessons work writ large, too.
georgie already has used the footage.
WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE?
A lot of us were watching it via the live, raw feed from the webcams and kept saying it was staged, and that the shots finally selected for our consumption were cropped so tight it looked like thousands of people were taking part. It was just a dozen or so embarassed-looking guys who were let thru all the barricades in a truck, then the tank business, which took several attempts. I remember it distinctly, though I was accused of hating freedom at the time.
well after this event happened ,the blog world quickly figured out it was staged event...but the blog world power wasn't as big as it was now. I remember all those year in review- on cable news and news magazines all showed the Saddam statue toppling as the key image of 2003 ..
On a personal note , I think about that time leading up to the war and immediate aftermath when my views about the war (it was wrong war at wrong time - let inspectors do their jobs etc ) branded me a TRAITOR working with the TERRORIST.
althought I still feel a personal bitterness about this, I use that feeling to make sure that Kerry wins in November.
JS,
Great pic of the square in which the statute was toppled. Looking at this lesser-known pic and comparing it to the well-known pic of "the Iraqi's toppling the statue" really gives you a feel for how the embedded media construct a fairy tale story to promote/legitimize the actions of the state.....
Hey, forget the damn statue folks, the whole fuckin' WAR is one big psyop. Come what may in Iraq, the changes made domestically are what the Theo-Fascists are really concerned about: permanent changes in America turning us into a religious police state. You know in your heart of hearts the Theo-Fascists don't give a rats ass about the 'little brown ones' except for cheap expendable labor but back home on the West 40? Walll pardner, they figure its 'their due' (to quote one of their notoriously loose-lipped thugs) to have Amerika rebuilt to suit their needs.
Boo hoo. Psyops are fact of life in modern warfare. What they did was correct and for the right reasons. Quit whining about it like it was some sort of conspiracy.
By "they" you mean the US government.
But even if you were right, that it was for "the right reasons" the point is the complicity of the press in a staged event, not the actions of the government.
Perhaps you think the press should be loyal to the government instead of an independent check on the government. Perhaps you would like living in Saudi Arabia.
I wonder how much oil we could get just grinding up the little brown bastards? That would kill 2 birds with one contractor.
Kristoff must have discovered at least one of his balls while changing underwear yesterday. He's got a pretty good column up today on the documentary, "Control Room." Equates FOX News with Al Jazeera...
I really don't see what the big deal is. The flag raising over Iwo Jima was staged too.
Nope. Read your history.
The flag was raised the first time under live fire then staged later for the famous photograph.
@samlex
prot a noblem...,
here another that you might dig on:
"FAIRNESS? DECENCY? HOW CAN YOU EXPECT
FAIRNESS OR DECENCY ON A PLANET OF SLEEPING
PEOPLE?"
- G.I. Gurdjieff
When the Russian mathematician, Ouspensky, was first
studying with Gurdjieff, he had great trouble understanding
Gurdjieff s insistence that most people are machines and totally
unaware of the objective world around them. Then, one day,
after World War I had begun, Ouspensky saw a truck full of
artificial legs. These artificial legs were being sent to the frontline
hospitals, for soldiers whose legs had not even been blown
off yet, but whose legs would be blown off. The prediction that
these legs would be blown off was so certain that the artificial
legs were already on their way to replace the natural legs. The
prediction was based on the mathematical certainty that millions
of young men would march to the front, to be maimed and murdered,
as mindlessly as cattle marching into a slaughterhouse.
In a flash, Ouspensky understood the mechanical nature of
ordinary human consciousness.
Watching BBC World news, I learned Saddam's court appearance was timed for the early news programs, prime seats went to US journalists, and no Iraqi journalists got seats...then they cut to Peter Jennings for a description of the action.
Those bastards. Those MFing bastards.
How many media members were there, on site, gleefully reporting this marvelous impulse of the Iraqi people? Jackasses. Every single one of them.
One would think that relatively intelligent carbon-based life forms would be able to tell this was staged. Children would've been able to tell.
This should be a big story. But Michael Moore might've gotten his facts wrong so the mediots don't have time.
From the moment that GHWB decided to start comparing him to Hitler, Saddam has been a mythological figure, as seen through the prism of our news and entertainment media. Their infatuation with setting up good vs. evil plot lines stifled serious discussion about his intentions and laid the groundwork for the Bushies to launch this idiotic war. It's a fucking disgrace.
Capitalism and sober reporting just don't stay mixed for long, I'm afraid.
It's Through the Looking Glass time for all the wingers, and the hilarious bit is that they think that because they can't see their muddy boots in the moonlight they aren't making any tracks.
History will record (is recording, blogs) this time as the point when the R party ran out of rationality, and far from 'disproving' liberal assertions of reality, proved that there wasn't any there there, that the propaganda was mostly for their own collapsed moral and intellectual ditch.
They support (wasting) the troops. And, since this is war, making as much money as possible, drunken pigs on the run.
Oink, oink--fascist liars! Unclefuckers indeed.
As usual, our media placed the propaganda on front pages, and in the leading stories on TV news, but the "retraction" never makes its way onto center stage.
Funny how quick the big cheese network got out a retraction from fact to propaganda about calling Florida from Gore to Bush in Y2K, though, isn't it?
er, networks..
Kristoff . . . Equates FOX News with Al Jazeera...
BFD. Let me know when he does a column on Judy Miller or CNN.
And Chalabi just happened to be handy for the festivities. hah
Paul said.. "drunken pigs on the run"
Nice feel to it. I changed it a little bit for the bumper sticker:
"Bush/Cheney 04- Leading the stampede of drunken pigs to the trough"
Ah, maybe it'd take a BIG bumper to fit that one on.. like a nice Ford Expedition, like Shrub has in Crawford..
We are all nothing but sheep to these people.
The nobility of man is a concept lost on these people.
We are just obstacles that need to be manipulated. Why? Because we're *obstacles* who have to their dismay been given the right to stop what they're doing via the ballotbox.
You do realize that when media manipulation no longer works, the only way they're going to get their way is to remove us from the equation completely.
To what end they go to achieve this is something I'm afraid to consider, but endless war and endless catastrophes where the dead start to rack up in number, is the only way they are going to be able to thin the herds of people able to vote them out of office, and out of the corporate boardrooms.
Conspiracy theory time indeed.
MYOB'
.
For my 2c worth, I saw that photo op going down on NBC with Peter Jennings actually saying that the moment was equivalent to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
I responded by saying "you are a dumb ass" to the television set.
Picture of the staged tear-down, links to dishonest CNN coverage, and analysis here.
... and I would still like to know who the hell this man is.
Hey Newsweek, why didn't you answer any of my letters about him? Thanks for all the great investigative reporting.
As the man says.... bastards.
Guy | Email | Homepage | 07.03.04 - 11:23 am
and doesnt messr.Chalibt ,look ever so debonaire in his Harrods black silk tee shirt...ahhhh the dolce vida!
What will we tell the children?
"Kick Saddam's head, kid. That's right, kick him in the head! Good. Again. Hold that. Good. Now piss on him, kid, piss in his eyes."
"Nope. That might keep it off tv."
"You're joking, right?"
"Nope. Can't chance it. I got guidelines from OGC."
"Damn party-poopers! Alright, kid, put it back in, no pissing. Take your shoe off and bang him with it. Good, that's great! Again, and how 'bout a big smile? Great!"
-
Was it Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions that used "*" as a literary device?
Can't imagine why I thought of that just now.
.
spork_incident | Email | Homepage | 07.03.04 - 9:12 am | #
ROFLMAO!
Adds a new, steaming layer of meaning to Shrub as *.
Thanks, spork_incident.
-
OT, sort of: this morning my town had its annual 4th of July parade. We love it because it goes right past our house, and we get to sit on the front porch and watch. The firefighters, the Common Council, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, Little League, the whole nine yards. The first band that came past was playing the Marine anthem, and all I could think of was Iraq, and Abu Ghraib, and the way this President has FUCKED us over, and I felt such rage as I'd never felt before watching any parade.
Oh, yeah, and at the end of the parade, the local Assembly of God church had a group with signs saying, "We Support the Institution of Marriage" and "God Bless America" and talking about the Pledge of Allegiance and Under God, and I loudly said "I believe in the Separation of Church and State; I believe in the First Amendment." I don't know whether they heard me, but I felt better.
Begs the question whether they use these kinds of tactics on American people. The Neo-cons would do that to their fellow Americans? I THINK SO!
To: *
Go fuck yourself!
It needed to be said.
I don't regret saying it...many colleagues feel the same way.
I feel better now that I said it.
Credit: Big Time
Keep kicking ass, Nora!
If you wouldn't mind some "harmless propaganda", then you'll love John Kerry and his Fantastic Good Cop Routine. The circus is due in town soon enough.
"Harmless propaganda" -what a crock of bullshit. Let's invade other countries as long as we do it well... with social grace, diplomacy, a smile and mouthing words like "internationalism". Compassionate imperialism! Alright! Don't worry, it's cool. At least it's OUR guy doing it! What's wrong with you, would you prefer Bush? Etc.
"Let's teach media literacy" that's right... that's definitely what's needed. Unfortunately until people are willing to see through the lies of BOTH ends of the aristocratic spectrum, there will be no true literacy -just the usual rat race.
Happiness is just around the November corner... run, Forrest, run!
Say this kind of shit in front of me * and I will kick your ass from here to shinola.
6 Troops died today because of idiots like YOU.
poor guy | Email | Homepage | 07.03.04 - 9:44 am | #
Oorah, poor guy.
I'm just waiting for the face-to-face arguement with a winger where (s)he is reduced to asking me "Have you forgotten 911?". I have no problem cold-cocking the SOB (or B, I'm EO in this).
I figure I'd have a good chance with the "fighting words" defense against the assault and battery beef.
-
I don't know if anyone else has already mentioned this (I don't have time to read all 125+ entries), but the L.A. Times ran this story way, way back near the end of today's A section. I can't remember for sure, but I'm willing to et they ran the original Bush Admin.-sanctioned original photo on the front page. And the wing-nuts still insist we have a "Liberal" media .....
Right on, Nora. Use it or lose it.
I regret (but understand) that the Marine Hymn set off the Abu Ghraib thoughts. AG was an Army operation. I believe that the Corps' commanders, training and ethos make it highly likely that a jarhead would tell a creep like General Miller to go fuck himself.
And while I'm on internecine rivalry, I wonder why the Army after-action report is covering the Marine Corps actions in the square? The Marines' after-action report was done about a year ago, declassified and published almost immediately. I remember some serious comms issues, some weapons/equipment integration problems, etc. It's probaby still somewhere over at sftt.org.
Did the Army (or Pentagon?) just delay releasing this as long as they could, so bidden by OGC/Rove? Or were some pissed off generals timing this for an election effect? Heh heh.
I have not found the Army report anywhere yet. If a kind soul has a link . . . ?
-
Kindness of soul aside, here's a link to the actual report, On Point, from the Army Center for Lessons Learned, at Leavenworth:
http://onpoint.leavenworth.army.mil/
I have to admire our military's capacity for the dispassionate reality check, understandable since it's an item on the 'survival-of-my-ass' list.
-
But conspiracies in high places never happen and anyone who believes they do is not quite right in the head.
I know these things because the media has taught them to me.
"... and I would still like to know who the hell this man is.
"Hey Newsweek, why didn't you answer any of my letters about him? Thanks for all the great investigative reporting."
Here's an anwer:
"One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
(Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.)
Kivu
I remember the original story and picture well -- big headline and picture on page 1 in the LA Times. Today's retraction/correction story is on page A-28. There is a story below the fold on the front page: "Army Takes Its War Effort to Task" about the shortages in spare parts, etc. With that, as a "Related Story," there's a small picture a little bigger than your average commemorative stamp with a caption: "Hussein statue: U.S. military orchestrated its toppling. A28." They didn't completely bury the story, but they came close.
I remember arguing with my R-voting brother about this staged event at the time. His response: "So?" with a condescending shrug. Sometimes I want to strangle him.
Quentin, of course you're right; I knew even as I was having that visceral reaction that it wasn't the Marines who were involved in Abu Ghraib; I think it was just the military connection, the thought that our military had been so dishonored.
"This stuff was done for the Bush'04 campaign."
Like everything else. These guys know how to do two things and only two things: 1) Appeal to their base. 2) Conceal from the rest of us what they're really saying to their base.
And they can't even do the second thing anymore. Seems like daily more and more Americans figure out what thses sonsabitches are really up to. So they continue to appeal to what is actually a very narrow group of the citizenry. And they haven't realized just how many of us are on to them. They really truly believe that we are that stupid.
to figure out what tinfoit hatters assumed from the very start? This is hilarious though. I doubt it gets much press, unfortunately.
"This stuff was done for the Bush'04 campaign"
Paranoid delusion.
ANYONE HAVE A PIC OF SADDAM's STATUE WITH A US FLAG OVER ITS HEAD?????
The onlt thing missing was thew lease and gonad shockers...
Meme that moment.
Oops...sorry! I messed up my post. I'm still too used to the DU format!
only * 
darn typos...
and the * was not the same use og * this thread has brought up...
As Cheney said... Go F**K yourself *
* of
Yep...those were Chalabi's guys, the ones who were flown to Iraq from the US shortly after Saddam was ousted....I remember tinfoil hatters were very skeptical from the start, but of course the "liberal media" wasn't at all skeptical.
Look guys, I'm only writing as a right-winger becuase you KNOW that's what they'll say. They don't give a damn about the soldiers or this country. They only know that whatever bush says is right and anything else is leftist propaganda. If it bothered you, it should since they DO think like that. They DO hate the fact that they were lied to but can't blame bush so they blame anyone else they can think of...That "liberal media" those "lefties" Clinton is the favorite. But get used to it because they're just that insane. That I was able to goad you all into responding just shows how insane their point of view is.
* | Email | Homepage | 07.03.04 - 10:16 am | #
Roddy McCorley is right. There was this analysis of Bush's "christianity" (either in Harper's or the one on Moyers) which, noting the fact that Bush almost never quoted from or demonstrated an understanding or familiarity with the bible, explained that most fundies are like that. What they have instead is an understood phraseology of the saved, signalling to eachother with more innocuous terms than outright fire and brimstone.
patriotboy upthread said:
'Let's not forget that while the military was exploiting this "target if opportunity," people were looting an unguarded nuclear waste dump and countless armories'
There was a very interesting story about the looting last summer; in it, the author describes a scene where Iraqis are looting a weapons depot. On the wall, prominently displayed, are several very expensive ceremonial weapons. The looters, however, didn't touch these -- instead they took the relatively worthless (at the time I think the street price of an AK was something like 5 bucks) but useful weapons. It was quite obvious that folks were "stocking up" for future events.
And we see the results of this all the time -- the IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) are made using artillery shells, gunpowder, grenades, and other weapons looted immediately after the occupation began. This was, and continues to be, a glaring oversight. I have no idea why the military let the enemy re-arm itself like this. I guess they failed to realize the threat that was materializing right beneath their noses. Certainly Donald Rumsfeld was dismissive of the looting as a normal sort of thing that happens in war. Really? So, the next time the U.S. carries out military action someplace we'll let all the enemy forces disguise themselves as civilians and participate in a little harmless rearming...
...like this article I just saw on CNN illustrates:
U.S. troops discover weapons cache, car bombs
Kristoff must have discovered at least one of his balls while changing underwear yesterday. He's got a pretty good column up today on the documentary, "Control Room." Equates FOX News with Al Jazeera...
Then he wasn´t paying much attention. The Al-Jazeera people you see in Control Room appear to be far more dedicated to presenting the truth than anybody at FOX. They were skeptical from the start about who was behind the statue-toppling, and they reported how empty the square was and how the crowd of young men looked as if they'd been hauled in for the event.
Basharov - haven't seen Control Room but you might well be right that al Jazeera is more trustworthy than FOX. So if al Jazeera is the Middle Eastern CNN (in the Dept. of Tortured Analogies) does that make FOX the equivalent of the guy running a video camera when al Qaeda reads a screed and then cuts off an infidel's head ?
does that make FOX the equivalent of the guy running a video camera when al Qaeda reads a screed and then cuts off an infidel's head ?
Yes.
Yes it does.
semper fi, poor guy
my mental image of this 4th of July is Uncle Sam, all decked out in his red, white and blue, bent over, like a prisoner in Abu Ghraib (the pictures we have only seen in our minds' eyes) with Bush screwing him, from behind...making a train, with all the other neocon fuckers... Cheney, Rummy, and Wolfowitz, particularly.
that's what this fourth of July is all about in America.
I'll attend a fourth of July celebration when we get democracy back in this nation....which may be never, since, as trolls here demonstrate, their are enough fucking fools in this country who can't see they are being screwed by BushCo too.
Thought so...
CNN.com didn't entirely hide the truth. This CNN article from April 10, 2003 -- http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/
me...rj.irq.war.main -- has a link that states, "A U.S. Marine armored recovery vehicle pulls down a statue of Saddam."
Any photo that wasn't cropped - and they were available on various websites - made it obvious that the stock image being heralded by the Bushnicks was Bu(ll)shit.
I don't think that even this story is telling the whole truth. -- see the control room for more.
I did not read all the comments, so excuse me if this is up there somewhere.
I think this is a good time to dig the Newsweek and US Today covers that show the same guy kissing two soldiers. Some joked about the "Kiss me!" guy.
Someone then had a picture of Chalabi getting off the plane and the same guy was right behind him.
Maybe he was the FTD guy delivering the flowers all the Iraqi's ordered.
A few hours after this event Fox broadcast a session with an embedded journalist* in Iraq who was showing the clip to the solidiers he was with in Iraq, giving them the impress that the Iraqis were one with our troops.
Fox scamming the troops, so what's new?
* Embedded journalist not to be confused with Rupert Murdock and his embedded girlfriend.
Way upthread:
I really don't see what the big deal is. The flag raising over Iwo Jima was staged too.
The difference is, the Iwo Jima photo wasn't intended to deceive us. The U.S. really did invade and capture Iwo Jima--that's all that photo was intended to convey.
Here, the propagandists were trying to fool us into believing that the Iraqi population spontaneously tore down Saddam's statue, albeit with just a little help from American troops with heavy equipment.
This and "Saving Private Lynch" were P.R. stunts straight out of "Wag the Dog"--yet no one screamed "Wag the Dog! Wag the Dog!" as they did whenever President Clinton took any military action. But Clinton and his people didn't attempt to deceive us with cheap, dishonest P.R. stunts.
It's always amazed me that the media and public were able to accept that a totally spontaneous crowd of Iraqis just happened to have an American tank on hand when the mood took them to pull down the statue.
The flag draping of the statue was NOT the spontaneous idea of a corporal. Just as torture was not a spontaneous idea of the folks at abu ghraib. The fact that the flag draped over the statue's head had been retrieved from the WTC rubble, and shipped to Iraq for just that purpose indicates a level of planning that was more than likely hatched by either the Bush re-election team and/or Pentagon wonks. Aside from weaving great drama together with American and Iraqi 'patriotism', it was another opportunity to disingeniously link 9/11 with Saddam. The UK Guardian had this story down cold two weeks after the fact. I commented at the time in Slate, and got compliments from people who thought it a very clever parody of the news because they couldn't believe it was what I said it was--just another fantasy brought to us by Pentagon Studios.
Pleads guilty to stage-managed statue tipping?
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