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The Hydra’s New Head

Propagandists, and Selling the US-Iraq War

by Paul de Rooij
Dissident Voice

Posted: May 14, 2003

Just as weapons have gotten “smarter,” so too has the military gotten=20
more sophisticated about how to use the media to meet military objectives.

-- Jerry Broeckert, Lt. Col., public affairs officer in the US Marines
Corps. [1]

As the fog of war lifts, the propaganda model followed by the United
States to sell the US-Iraq War is now clear, and the best way to
understand this campaign is to consider it as psychological warfare
against the US population [2]. From the beginning, the propagandists
opted for a “sports show” metaphor as the overt image for this campaign.
There are numerous features of this propaganda campaign that are worth
examining since they are innovations, and sometimes contravene
previously held assumptions about such campaigns. There remain questions
about its long-term effectiveness, and whether the same formula can ever
be used again.


A war looking for a pretext

The US-Iraq war started years ago, but it was only in Sept. 2002 that a
decision was made to finish the job, and the hot war phase started on
Mar. 19, 2003 [3]. It was in mid-September that the US sought to pass a
UN resolution with onerous conditions attempting to elicit an outright
Iraqi rejection, and thus create a trigger for war [4]. Unfortunately
for the US, several Security Council members objected to the purpose of
the proposed resolution and forced its watering down, resulting in UNSCR
1441. It is important to view the ongoing bombing campaign against Iraq
in this context.

The bombing campaign beginning in September 2002 was meant to provoke
the Iraqis to reject the UN resolution – which would have given the US
the needed pretext for the war. (See Graph [5]). Once UNSCR 1441 was
passed early in Nov. 2002, then the level of provocation escalated again
in an attempt to get the Iraqis to reject the UN inspectors. However, it
is also clear that once the decision to go to war was made the
propaganda machine was set in motion. This was evident because key
propagandists initiated their campaign at the Pentagon in Nov. 2002. [6]
A deliberate use of bombings seems to have been made to justify the war;
the propagandists seem to have found a new implement for their toolkit.
The Pentagon has officially integrated the propagandists into its ranks;
but it is also evident that propagandists may be using the military for
their own ends.

Prior to Nov. 2002, one witnessed a remarkably inept attempt to justify
the war. This so-called public diplomacy failed to deliver a credible
justification for it, and made it very difficult for the subsequent
propaganda campaign, the one meant to herd the population and squash
dissent. The war-drummers not only had to stoke up the usual levels of
jingoism, but also required a search for a pretext. This job was made
even more difficult by the unwillingness of the UN to play along and the
unprecedented opposition to the war in Europe. This is one of the
unusual aspects of this war.

After Nov. 2002, public diplomacy sputtered along until it was
completely replaced by the war drummers after Feb. 6, 2003 -- when
Powell ineffectively accused Iraq of violating UNSCR 1441 in his address
to the UN Security Council. From that point, it was clear that war was
inevitable, and no further attempts were made to justify the war in a
serious way. The justification phase was simply over, and it was time
for the war-drummers to take over.


Targeting the home population

When one thinks of “psychological warfare operations” (psyops), one
thinks of airplanes dispensing leaflets over Iraqi army positions, but
it also encompasses threatening, starving, and even terrorizing the
enemy population. Psyops is meant to instill deep fear and defeatism.
The implements of such psyops are blunt, transparent, and of
questionable effectiveness. One generally doesn’t think of psychological
warfare as something waged against the home population; but this is
perhaps the best way to appreciate the US experience during the past few
months. The objective of such a campaign was to stifle dissent, garner
unquestioning support, and rally people around a common symbol.
Americans, and to a lesser extent Europeans, have been subjected to a
propaganda barrage in an effort to neutralize opposition to the war, and
this fits directly into a psyops framework.

Psyops appeal to the base human behavior of large groups. In the case of
the enemy, fear and even terror are likely to achieve the desired
results. In the case of the home population, it is the stoking of
jingoism, the “we-ism” in the crowd, the intimidation of dissent-- and
the fear factor is there too. The American flag acreage on display
everywhere is a clear manifestation that we are dealing with psyops
targeting the home population.

Psyops specialists know that one of the strongest human tendencies is to
try to conform to a group. Their objective is to create a din of
jingoism pushing for “our” team intimidating others, and at the very
least causing dissenters to lay low. It is not a good idea to go against
the grain in the middle of a riled crowd. This is achieved by filtering
the news so that it fits in with the desired message by, e.g.,
“embedding” of journalists, incorporation of censors within the main
media networks, and shutting out alternative news sources. The result
was stoking rampant jingoism in the US – and a mostly silenced anti-war=20
movement.

In the current military jargon, there is a distinction: psyops are
targeted at the enemy, and “military-media relations” are meant to
target the home core population. But the people involved in these
different operations tend to be the same, and there is a certain amount
of overlap. Jerry Broeckert, the US Marines media specialist, wrote
about “coordinat[ing] our information management campaign” with the
psyops officer. [7] And stated: “[using the media] blurs the line
between public relations and psychological operations”. The integration=20
of propaganda specialists in the military, and in turn, their
coordination with the media during this war means only one thing: the
home population is specifically targeted, and is probably the primary
target of this campaign. This raises disturbing questions for the media
on whether they want to become an implement in psyops against the home
population.


Restricting the Channel

A great part of the media campaign post Feb. 6, 2003 entailed
restricting the information emanating from Iraq. Robert Fisk wrote about
the censorship built into the major networks where all incoming news
items would be made propaganda-compliant. [8] The major American
networks complied willingly and seemed to have become part of the
propaganda structure. BBC’s Gavin Hewitt, an embedded journalist,
claimed recently that no restrictions were placed on his reporting, and
that he could beam out whatever he pleased. [9] It just means that the
filtering took place with his embedded editors in London, or that he
only saw what the army wanted him to see.

A second important aspect was the cleansing and control of the news
flow. As the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus wrote on April 17th: “You had this=20
absolute avalanche of material from our colleagues in Baghdad and with
the actual units in the field. But in a strange sort of way a lot of it
was like looking through a key-hole at a very small piece of the war.”
All the blood and gore were expunged, and there were only hints of Iraqi
suffering. During the 1991 Gulf War the video of bombings played a
central role, but this time, its usage was toned down. Some at the
Pentagon must have been upset at this because the US armory had upgraded
much of the video capability of its weapons. The “smart weapons” had
been upgraded to “smart multimedia weapons”. Alas, the images generated
from these weapons are now mostly meant to make Rumsfeld chuckle. Ah!
one can only imagine him watching these with Wagner playing in the
background!


The Sports Metaphor

Propaganda campaigns usually follow a theme or have a
flavor-of-the-month. The propagandists borrow from product advertising
campaigns that are conducted in a similar fashion. During the 1991 Gulf
War, the theme was the “video game”, which was evident due to the number
of demolition video clips. This theme couldn’t be reused because the
video-game scenes raised some uncomfortable questions about this
enterprise especially among opponents of the war. It was therefore
necessary to conjure a new theme, and all indications are that this
campaign followed a “sports show” metaphor. The main advantage of this
approach is that Americans are very comfortable with the “sport show” --
it is part of their daily diet, it is intelligible to them, and it gives
them a passive “entertained” role. Casting propaganda in such a known,
comfortable framework makes people adjust favorably to the message.

Given that the war didn’t have an accepted justification, the
propagandists opted to stress the “support our troops” refrain,
paralleling the “support our team” chant. It doesn’t matter if people
opposed the war; they could still understand supporting the troops in
the current context. This proved to be a very effective ploy. Erstwhile
opposition groups changed their stance overnight when the “hot” phase of
the war started. The Liberal Democratic party in the UK switched from an
anti-war stance to “support our troops” mode overnight. Although base=20
political calculations may have come into play, opposing British troops
once they went into action was not tenable even if the party continued
to oppose the war.

Presenting the war as a sports event enabled the propagandists to
circumvent the thorny issue of why the US was so eager to engage in this
war in the first place. When one watches a sports game, there is no need
to think about the “why” of anything; it is only an issue of “supporting
our team”. You are also only supposed to root for the “good guys” team,
and hate the “Iraqi meanies”. Dissident voices are also drowned out –=20
you are only supposed to cheer for the home team. Cheering for a team in
the opponent side’s benches is a dangerous proposition – which can even
entail mortal danger. [10]

Equally important is that sports fans are supposed to react on cue, and
otherwise are expected to be quiet. This passivity is ideal for the
propagandists, and possibly this can be imbued in the war spectacle.

Sports matches are informal events, and the presentation of this war
followed a similar setup. There was no need for a formal declaration of
war. Just the starting whistle was necessary for the game to begin. Even
the non-recognition of the Iraqi “regime” was part of this – the US was
playing against Saddam, and we refer to the other players by their first
names. If this game is informal, then no appearance is given that the
whole enterprise may have any serious consequences.

The 24-hour Newscast networks portrayed the “war as sports show”
splendidly. The networks constantly fed news snippets without context.
In sports, context isn’t necessary, and carrying this through to the war
circumvented awkward questions. Context is a dangerous thing because it
raises questions, and propagandists don’t want to foster that. The
newscasters also showed the “good guys” in action from many angles, and
only slow motion replays were missing. Exposed to this spectacle, one is
only meant to cheer, drink beer, and release one’s jingoistic id.
Truculent slogans like “shock & awe” conveyed the might of our team, and
appealed to primitive behavior; the name of the putative American
strategy resembled the name of a wrestler, and is something that can be
ignored due to its artificiality.

The “play-by-play” military analysts incorporated the sports analogy
completely – with maps/diagrams, advice to players, and making the
audience think about the marvelous strategy. The military analysts in
CNN certainly were portrayed as retired football coaches. In the
morning, these “Xs” (ex-military-so-and-so) would congregate for
Pentagon briefings. One can only speculate what briefings they received
and from whom, but their uniform terminology indicates that the
propagandists had a major say. “Once our troops go over the red line…=94
and similar nonsense was sports talk generated by the propagandists.

Sportsmen in the US have their names inscribed on their shirts. Before
the war, all tanks had names stenciled -- in large, black, easy-to-read
letters -- on the barrels of the gun. The tank commanders were
encouraged to write an evocative name on their tanks, and the sporting
analogy is obvious. The staged nature of this activity was also evident
since all tanks had the lettering on the same spot. This is the first
time known that tanks have been labeled in such a fashion.

Lies don’t matter in sports events. If you are told that your team is
the best and eat poodles for breakfast – no harm is done. Planting lies,
semi-truths and deceptions is useful for the propagandists, and in the
current context, it is necessary because no viable justification has
been found. So it is not surprising to find even war supporters making
statements like: “Everyone knows he [Bush] lied about weapons of mass
destruction being the point of the war.” But then it doesn’t matter that
Bush lied! [11]

The war even had a trophy – covering Saddam’s face with the American
flag that hung outside the Pentagon on 9-11 was a salute to the
propagandists themselves. Now that they work for the military, they will
certainly earn medals for this!


Propaganda Highlights

The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue on April 9th was certainly a
propaganda coup. (NB: The same propagandists who fabricated the
throwing-the-babies-out-of-incubators story in 1991 produced this event.
[12]) These scenes certainly had an impact around the world, and it
briefly seemed that it justified the war. However, US Marine Corporal
Edward Chin admitted that he was ordered to wrap the face of Saddam in
the US flag before toppling the statue – nothing spontaneous about this.
Furthermore, some Iraqis were bused in for the occasion, to join the
small crowd that was mostly made up of journalists. The crowd wasn’t
even able to topple the statue by themselves, but an engineering vehicle
was handily available on site to finish an American operation.

Mark Damazer, the BBC’s deputy director of news, accepted that they were
carried away in broadcasting this event, and only later “did questions
arise about it”. Nevertheless, he justified its broadcast because it
symbolized a defining moment in the demolition of the regime.
Unfortunately, it was a defining moment for propaganda since the event
was entirely staged, and major media unquestioningly broadcast this message.

Now that the war is almost over, and that the search for a justification
of the war continues apace, there is a need to be skeptical of many of
the “discoveries” taking place. Anyone who remembers the “discovery=94 of
stashes of whiskey and the like after Salvador Allende was killed in
Chile should not have been surprised to see the discoveries in Uday’s
lair. [13] Uday Hussein may not have been a nice guy, but it is highly
unlikely that stashes of pornography were left lying around. On the face
of it, there is a high probability that many such items were indeed planted.

Another dubious claim is that regarding the discovery of a “suicide-belt
factory” – with the suicide outfits neatly hung in dry cleaner’s
plastic. This is a rather absurd story, for the simple reason that
suicide bombing was a concept foreign to Saddam Hussein’s “regime”. Some
of the foreign volunteers fighting in Iraq may have been so disposed,
but it is difficult to imagine their setting up such a factory. The
propagandists seem to want to have it both ways: on the one hand Iraqi
soldiers must be threatened by enforcer squads in order to coerce
soldiers to fight, but on the other hand, some people are so motivated
that they are willing to die for the “regime”. It is highly unlikely
that this story is legitimate, and it was produced to provide another
after the fact anti-terrorism justification.

There is perhaps a simple proof that the suicide-belt story was a sham.
If the story were true, then we would have heard it repeated many times
over. Journalists would have been allowed to inspect this a bit closer.
But the story disappeared in no time, and indicating that it had served
its purpose. It is also curious to see the faces of some of the same
soldiers reappear in several of these seemingly staged events. One of
the soldiers in the suicide-belt factory seems to be the same one
showing off a tacky poster in one of the palaces.

The emergence of a general rule: If a “news” item about a grotesque
aspect of the regime, WMD, or terrorism, appears on TV for a day or two
and then disappears, it is safe to bet that it is a fabrication.
Similarly, if the reporter from such a story is not identified, then you
are watching another fabrication.

It is certainly taking a long time to find chemical weapons – the
staging of such an event must take some time. By 1998 UNMOVIC/UNSCOM had
demolished “95 to 98%” of all weapons of mass destruction and their
infrastructure, and therefore there may be precious little proof lying
around. The propagandists may have to ship in barrels of the stuff, and
maybe even entice an admission out of Dr. Ammash, known to the
propagandists as “Dr. Anthrax”. For her cooperation, she may end up
getting a position at a mediocre Texas university.


Ah! the embedded journalists

The word embedded itself suggests a carnal relationship with the
Pentagon. Questions arise about who is using whom, and about the
journalists’ integrity while riding along in a tank. Any illusions of
retaining independence are entirely dispensed with. In fact, the
Pentagon used the embedded journalists, and not the other way around.
NB: the Pentagon views the media as a “force multiplier”. These
journalists were stitched onto the military machine to sell its war, and
perhaps unwittingly they became part of the machine. As Tony Jenkins,
President of the UN Correspondents Association, recently remarked about
the embedded journalists: “But boy were they played like a musical
instrument by the Pentagon.” Or Kenneth Bacon, a former Pentagon
spokesman, wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently that: “You couldn’t
hire actors to do as good a job as the press has done” from the
Pentagon’s point of view. [14]

There is an issue of guilt by association. Some of the embeds were
dubious reporters to begin with. Alexander Cockburn has recently
analyzed the pathetic role played by the permanently embedded Judith
Miller of the New York Times. [15] Similarly, an embedded journalist
from the Jerusalem Post spewed pernicious propaganda, e.g., the March
23rd “chemical weapons factory discovery”. Some other so-called
journalists even participated in the looting spree. Unfortunately, there
were many other such examples of dubious reporters. The key question is
if any legitimate reporting can take place when so many are implicated
in dubious and uncritical reporting.

The modus operandi of the embeds was to be busy reporting on some of the
action directly in front of the units they were attached to; but they
never asked any of the obvious questions. Often embedded journalists
would “interview” one of the military officers who would utter dubious
statements. The journalists usually played along, and didn’t question
the previous statements that by then had proven to be false. For
example, “there is an uprising in Basra” was repeated several times by
British officers, regurgitated by the embedded journalists, but then no
questions were posed when this proved to be a deception. Journalists
cannot play along with so much deceit without tarnishing their credibility.

Several journalists pointed out targets to the soldiers they were
traveling with. No sooner had the BBC’s Gavin Hewitt pointed out an
enemy truck than it was shot to pieces and several Iraqis were killed.
One CNN crew had an armed escort who shot some Iraqis. Once journalists
start taking part in a war in this fashion their objectivity and
purported neutrality is compromised, and they become legitimate targets too.

Some of the embeds reported from the field as if they were the main
attraction of the story. ITN’s Juliet Bremner posed in front of the
camera to report a story, and it seemed that her presence was more
important than the scene behind her – often there was nothing else to
report. She was copying the “I am the story” style of CNN’s Christian
Amanpour. When the journalist becomes the story and not the one who puts
images and stories into context, then again, journalism is diminished.

The embedded journalists didn’t direct the military where to go, and the
military only showed the embeds what it wanted them to see. The troops
seldom passed the areas that already had been laid waste by B52s or
artillery, and thus the embeds didn’t see much blood and gore. One also=20
wonders if the embeds would broadcast any blood and gore scene even if
they were given the opportunity. Most of these so-called journalists
manage to conjure dozens of justifications on why not to broadcast such
images. In the process, the image of this war is kept antiseptically
clean, and the horrors of war aren’t apparent to the TV-viewing public.=20
Painting such a clean image makes war more palatable, doesn’t raise
awkward questions, and makes future wars even more likely.

Besides the publicized embedded journalists there were “other”
reporters. When the army crossed the “red line”, unidentified reporters
shot the video footage of a Colonel talking about the “level two
chemical weapons alert”, but the reporter didn’t appear on the video
footage. Similarly, an unidentified camera team filmed the
“suicide-belt” factory. It is therefore highly likely that there were=20
dedicated propagandists among the embedded reporters. It was very easy
to hide some propagandists among the 810 embedded reporters. The
propagandists’ reportage or deception gained credibility because an
impression was given that it was the embedded journalists doing the
reporting. It is an old game played anew: the wolf masqueraded in the
journalist’s clothing.

In total, the role of the embedded journalists in this war was a
disgrace. It is clear that the participation in this Pentagon propaganda
program will have deleterious effects on journalism in general, and the
media’s role in reporting during the next war in particular. Journalists
have a clear choice: to retain their independence and objectivity, or to
drag the second oldest profession into the realms of the oldest one. [16]


The British experience

After the hot war started, the British troops stationed in the Gulf
complained that the BBC coverage of the war was not getting them into
the festive mood. They wanted to have bloody red meat, but instead they
got porridge. To instill a bellicose spirit required switching to CNN or
Fox News.

By any standard, the BBC coverage of the war was more subdued than
CNN’s, and another characteristic is that it restricted its output over=20
time. That is, while CNN devoted almost all its programming to the war,
the BBC reduced its output to the extent that at the beginning of April
the war coverage amounted to about an hour per day on the major BBC
channels. To understand this one must remember that the opposition to
this war in the UK was overwhelming. Polls before the war suggested that
around 70-80% of the population opposed a war without a UN mandate. The
BBC could hardly beat the war drums like Fox News in the US because of
domestic sensibilities. Instead, it opted for a toned down CNN formula,
and it sought to make it bland – a BBC specialty. And just like CNN,
dissenting voices were entirely squeezed out of TV programming.


Differences and innovations

Jacques Ellul has analyzed propaganda extensively, and has distilled
some key points for it to be effective. Some of those points are
relevant when analyzing the current propaganda campaign.

Ellul postulates that propaganda must have a monopoly and drown out
everything else. In the current context, it is remarkable that the major
media are nearly homogenous and with no critical edge. So, although
there are thousands of independent channels and newspapers, it is
remarkable how uniform they were in the message conveyed, and this is
especially noticeable in the US. To obtain such uniformity must be
deemed a clear victory in this propaganda campaign. The same cannot be
said for the UK, where some media remained critical throughout. It also
indicates that although the propagandists have sold the war to the
American people, spreading the message elsewhere has been a less than
stellar job.

Propaganda is usually thought to make a population act in a certain
manner, whereas the current campaign seems to have had passivity as its
main goal. Its major challenge was to shut out the dissident voice, and
to stifle criticism. This seems also to have been a great success since
the peace movement seems to have gone mostly into hibernation during the
war.

Finally, propaganda has moved from a big lie repeated often enough to
one where a barrage of deception is put forth. The credibility of the
propaganda media has been tarnished in the process. The US-Iraq war
strained the propaganda campaign because it lasted longer than expected.
Everyone assumed it would be over in a matter of days, and we believed
the propaganda on this issue. When this didn’t happen the propaganda
mill required pushing more deception, and it is likely that this cannot
be sustained for a protracted duration. [17] It is also likely that this
formula cannot be repeated often.


Conclusion

There are lessons for all in the current experience. For those seeking
to avert future wars, there must be a realization that organizing
marches or using the political process is not enough. Besides these
means, it is essential to obtain independent media outlets, so that the
power of the established media conglomerates may be challenged. This war
exposed the corporate media networks as adopting a unified role in
selling this war by shutting out dissent and beating the war drums. Such
a media structure will not in itself challenge the new American Imperial
role, and it has equally disturbing implications for democracy everywhere.

We must realize that we are dealing with extremely cynical people who
think that entire populations can be herded and cajoled. They think
journalists can be used for their own ends. Their success, at least in
the US, is a dark omen. It is a very dangerous development that such
people have joined forces with the mean-spirited neocons. Democracy,
freedom of speech and peace are under threat if these groups are not
challenged vigorously now.

For the first time, the US military has fully integrated the media into
its wars; this integrated propaganda is seen as part of its arsenal –
this is the “force multiplier”. It is also evident that the propaganda
weapon in this war has been highly sophisticated and effective. After
all, it managed to sell the war in very difficult circumstances. Part of
their success entailed commandeering most media channels and journalists
to sing their tune. The Hydra has acquired a new head.

* This article is a refinement of Arrogant Propaganda and the Glossary
of Warmongering



Paul de Rooij is an economist living in London and can be reached at
proox@hotmail.com (NB: All attachments will be deleted automatically)


NOTES

[1] Jerry Broeckert, “Loose Lips Float Ships!: How the military uses the
media today”, www.rakemag.com, April 2003. Good account of the history
of “military media relations” and how it has evolved in the. It contains
some discussion of the US-Iraq War:
http://www.rakemag.com/printable.asp?catID=46&itemID=2136&pg=all

[2] Propaganda also determined the name of this war. “Gulf War II” is=20
deceptive because it conveys the impression that the attack was part of
an internationally sanctioned coalition – just like the 1991 Gulf War.
In the current war, it is only the US and the UK that are clearly
involved, the main components of the meager “coalition”. However, the=20
UK’s contribution to the war is less than 10%, and after the recent US
troop increases, the UK’s contribution to the force is closer to 7%. It=20
is therefore clear that this is an American war; thus the “US-Iraq War”=20
is the most appropriate name. How can a war be “in Iraq” and then be
called “Gulf War”?

[3] See “War: It's Already Started”:

www.counterpunch.org/rooij01302003.html

[4] The US has engineered other such diplomatic traps, e.g., the
Rambouillet Agreement that sought to impose onerous conditions on
Serbia. Its rejection provided the desired trigger for war. US diplomacy
doesn’t seek to avert war, but on the contrary, it seems to engineer
wars even where they could be avoided.

[5] Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace [CCMEP] has an excellent
website, www.ccmep.org. It has a sizeable record of US-UK bombings of
Iraq. The graph only refers to the incidents that were confirmed by the
US. A date when there was one or more bombings is classed as a one, and
zero otherwise. NB: this is an underestimate of the bombing activity
since the US military sometimes refused to confirm or deny an action.
From independent accounts by activists in the area, two other incidents
were added. Some confirmations were obtained from the BBC
(unfortunately, online BBC reports scroll and disappear as a record).

Although CCMEP’s data is very useful, it excludes some important
features. It doesn’t reflect the number of flights over Iraq. These
flights may not have damaged anything, but they are part of the same
provocation campaign. The level of over flights went from dozens per day
earlier in the year to several hundred. The data available is spotty,
but on two occasions, the US acknowledged up to 500 over flights on a
given day in February 2003. Even one over flight over the US would be
considered a serious hostile act.

[6] Jerry Broeckert, ibid. The Nov. 2002 date cited stems from: “the
move of Jim Wilkinson was sent from the White House Office of
Communications to head strategic communications at the Pentagon’s U. S.=20
Central Command with General Tommy Franks.”

[7] Jerry Broeckert, ibid.

[8] www.corkpsc.org/db.php?aid=1811. It is remarkable that censors are
embedded. NB: CNN deny such a setup except on their text services.

[9] Gavin Hewitt talking at a conference “Journalists at War”, City
Univ., May 2, 2003.

[10] In Brazil some sports fans were found cheering the opposing team in
the supporters’ benches. They were set upon and one was killed. Moral of
the story: supporting a team in the middle of a hostile crowd is dangerous.

[11] Robert Steinback, “Did Our Leaders Lie to Us? Do We Even Care?,”=20
CommonDreams, April 29, 2003.

[12] David MacMichael and Ray McGovern, “Ex-CIA Professionals: Weapons
of Mass Distraction: Where? Find? Plant?,” Common Dreams, April 25, 2003.

[13] A few days after president Allende was killed in 1973 soldiers
exposed stashes of whiskey and other things that suggested Allende was a
closet bourgeois. Similarly, Noriega’s house was raided after the US
invasion of Panama to reveal stashes of pornography and cocaine. Both
incidents were staged. Sources: Veja magazine in the 1980s ran a story
about a Brazilian intelligence officer involved in the operation in
Chile. About the action against Noriega, his lawyer has stated as much.
Even the furniture of his house was changed and “frogs” were introduced
everywhere – supposedly one cannot respect a person who loves frogs.

[14] Tony Jenkins speech transcript and audio:
www.corkpsc.org/db.php?aid=2777; Kenneth Bacon reference comes from the=20
same source.

[15] Alexander Cockburn, “The Decline and Fall of American Journalism
(Part LXV): the Case of Judy Miller,” CounterPunch, April 25, 2003

[16] Broeckert, ibid.

[17] See my Arrogant Propaganda:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles3/DeRooij_Propaganda.htm