al-Queda: The sweet smell of propaganda

Scott Horton over at Harpers in his article DOD Claim of Capture of “Senior Al-Qaeda Figure” Draws Questions raises some ummm... important questions.

As I read though my list of daily news feeds what I found surprising was the sheer number of stories in the last 24hrs relating to the capture of this al-Qaeda figure or that al-Qaeda group which I thought interesting and no doubt Scott at Harpers thought so too.

As Scott points out, the story regarding the apprehension of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi,"one of al-Qaeda's highest-ranking and experienced senior operatives" happened five months ago?!

These and other related al-Qaeda stories smacks of the Whitehouse attempting to spin the perception of success in an otherwise sea of failure stories circling around it's beseiged administration.

Media: When watchdogs become lapdogs

Rupert Murdoch feels that he and the Washington Post are the embattled ones in the quest to deliver us from the propaganda of lies and hate.

In a speech yesterday at the Milken event he complained about the monolithic attacks on George Bush every day of the year claiming that "the atmosphere is absolutely toxic."

He went on to say that "alleged climate changes" and other problems are far more manageable than is the threat of Islamic terror, which will worsen significantly if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

The mantra "Iran must not get nuclear weapons" has been repeated so often now that most people have come to believe that Iran has them, or is getting them. This implication is completely unproven. The tragedy would be that in the end the Bush Administration may goad Iran into a real nuclear-weapons program ably assisted by modern day media Goebels like Murdoch et al.

Rupert also "lamented the difficulties he has had in doing business with China, where, "the fact is, media is pretty much closed." I imagine the Chinese have similar concerns that Chavez had in Venezuela where he canceled Radio Caracas Television's license because of their failure to report accurately on the events of the two-day coup in 2002.

Perhaps the lesson for Rupert is that wearing your politics on your sleeve is not always good for business.

Iraq Withdrawal: A Feith saving exercise?

In today's Whitehouse press briefing Dana Perino tried to justify President Bush’s escalation in Iraq by stating,

“The terrorists that are seeking a safe haven in Iraq, if we were to leave, would find one, just like they had one in Afghanistan.”

Yes Dana, that's the foothold they grabbed whilst he U.S. was too busy establishing a "beachhead" in Iraq to tackle Iran!?

I'm just wondering what part of the recent Senate Intelligence Committee findings regarding Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Dana Perino missed?

Are we being asked to have Feith or save Feith?

Debka Iran Rhetoric

Caught-up on a "Special Report" titled Tehran’s Provocations top US Military Build-up to Ratchet up War Tensions over at DEBKA and had to chuckle for two reasons.

Firstly, due to their erroneous claims of inside intelligence which miraculously are unsupported by actual circumstances and secondly, because of the following piece of DEBKA propaganda:

"...Iran is expanding its enrichment program at a pace much faster than U.S. intelligence experts had predicted [and] ... may indeed have a bomb by 2009."

Well I guess someone should rush and tell the IAEA which have been maintaining inspections at all Iranian Nuclear facilities including the new centrifuge plant at Natanz. In fact they are due to make their report public any day now.

For the record again only one centrifuge out of thousands has been found to contain the presence of HEU at around 36% and Iran has given a full explanation to the IAEA. ALL of the other components have had average readings under 5%.

How about letting the IAEA in at Dimona? Thought not :)

The Iranians have done it!

Hotair at Hotair.com. Well they got that right! Talk about hysterical it's embarrassing. Bryan dribbles the following in his post Iran: 3,000 centrifuges installed:

"I guess what I’m saying is that the international community is a giant waste of time, and will soon be a ginormous waste of life. And the international community is very likely to blame it all on us when the mushroom cloud lights the sky ...bah blah blah"

Here are the facts Bryan:

Iran has had the 3000 centrifuge farm under construction for over 12 months. The IAEA has known about it all this time. Only one centrifuge has ever been found to have a level of enrichment beyond 5% and the Iranians made full explanation that they purchased it off of Dr. Khan in Pakistan as did the Libyans a decade ago.

The IAEA admits in their reports that there is NO EVIDENCE of Iranians engaging in enrichment for weapons purposes. The IAEA's major concern is and has always been about the safety of the facilities for undertaking that enrichment.

Here are some facts from the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

"The safeguards required by this Article shall be implemented in a manner designed to comply with Article IV of this Treaty, and to avoid hampering the economic development of the Parties"

"IV.1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty."

The State Department is on record saying:

"The United States believes noncompliance judgments ...should be made on the basis of the facts, not based upon political calculation or the mere use (or avoidance) of specific trigger words."

So, let's just stick with the facts Bryan before gratuitously wetting our pants over nothing in public.

Lying for Queen & Country

The Iranians manufactured a great deal of positive PR out of this exercise. I don't mean for the detention of the British sailors and Marines but for their treatment of them. The whole exercise of photos, video footage etc was all done to capitalize on a captive public convinced from previous U.S. rhetoric that the Iranians would behave like monsters they were portrayed to be. But instead of waterboarding their captives the worst thing they made one member do was wear a scarf. There's nothing quite like the humiliation of being treated well to dispel the myth of Persian evil.

In a sense then, the Iranian treatment of the British Sailors and Marines achieved two primary propaganda objectives. First, it portrayed a marked contrast between their treatment of detainees and the U.S treatment of detainees. This demonstrated that far from being the abject monsters portrayed by the COW centric media the public instead saw British Marines and Sailors talking candidly about the circumstances of their detention--a situation never before seen. One could almost hear the cries of neo-cons in their lounge rooms lamenting "why didn't you fight back!?" which really translates to "why couldn't you have just died in a firefight?" The media reports of U.S. frustration were palpable.

Don't get me wrong, we've seen captured troops before making confessions during the first gulf war but lets make no mistake that those videos were made under duress and obvious to all and sundry--different objectives. Seen in this light, harming the British Sailors and Marines then would have constituted a PR disaster for the Iranians and delivered a PR windfall to the the U.S. only too ready to lob a few cruise missiles into the pot. In other words, any poor treatment of the captives by the Iranians would have catalyzed public opinion firmly against them. It would have been the opportunity the U.S. were waiting for to be able to say "See! We told you they were cruel and inhuman."

The second propaganda objective as I see it was that it let the world know that the Iranians were not going to stand by and let their sovereignty be walked over by arrogant boarding parties from a far flung foreign country. This was Iran's way of saying we're not going to put up with your sh*t right on our doorstep.

Did it work? Well, taking in to account the number of comedian and talk show hosts who made the obligatory scarf and hot dinner jokes, the first objective was met. Also the reports of the British reviewing their boarding operation procedures in the disputed Shatt, the second objective was also met.

Subsequently, the British Government is in damage control attempting to apply counter spin to the Iranian PR coup by attempting to turn the Iranians back into the monsters they told everyone they were by permitting for the first time ever for active duty personnel to sell their stories of "torture" to the highest bidder.

I can't help but wonder, why the sweetener? What happened to lying for Queen and Country?

Free Propaganda Poster

Sometimes it's hard to find the right mix of words that explains the situation as it really stands but I think this little number I came up says it for everyone; no matter which side of the fence you're on. It's a remixed version of a WWII poster that I appropriated that's out of copyright. So, don't be shy, show your appreciation for George's efforts in the Middle East and grab it while it's hot.

Ok, I got the idea for this from Micah Wright who created the Propaganda Remix Project. But I have to confess that I like my propaganda a little more on the dual-use ambiguous side of things.

Go on, take it. It's yours :)