Pacific Views

Today's Hero

I realized that I buried Steve Soto's incredible find in my previous post. Steve's post about Lt. Col. Sam Gardiner is incredibly important on two fronts:

1. Sam Gardiner was asked by the Bush Administration to help with the humanitarian needs before the war, therefore he has credibility that those of us in the hinderlands do not
2. Gardiner has done an excellent job of showing how the Bushies (and their lying friends in the UK at No. 10 Downing Street) have conducted a very powerful propaganda campaign to sell the war.

Many of us know that propaganda was used to convince the public of the need for and glory of the war on Iraq. But few of us have done the deep analysis of the stories on both sides of the Atlantic that were designed for one thing only: to sell and promote the war without regard to the truth. The images and themes they used were chosen to engage the emotions and to undermine the logical and factual problemsolving skills of their targets. As with way too many radical right "campaigns", the war sales campaign was all style and no substance. The fact that real people suffered or died just doesn't matter in their campaign for total power and total control.

Even knowing that these guys are master propagandizers, it is quite unsettling to read the entire report produced by Gardiner. This report clearly shows how the governments of the US and the UK colluded together to create and promote this vast disinformation campaign. For both Bush and Blair, the problem is that the sales job worked really well: people bought their product. But now the crappy quality of the product is becoming clear and the buyers of this "glorious and noble" war are realizing they bought a really nasty lemon which they can't get rid of without being a lot worse off. Even more worrying is that the Bushies are still using these techniques and will use them again because they have proven that they work unless they are stopped.

Lt Col Samuel Gardiner is a real hero in my book, because he has enough credibility and visibility to know he will be targeted by the Rove/Bush vengence machine. The Bushies have gained so much of their power by their ability to make their enemies pay (Gray Davis certainly is a casualty in their war) that it takes real courage to ask them to be accountable. As with Joseph Wilson, only strong and public support for Sam Gardiner will protect him from their vengence machine. I think we can help most by publicizing his report far and wide and by asking the media to pay attention to it.

Full Report: Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II (pdf)

Please read it and then spread the word.

Posted by Mary at October 16, 2003 04:06 AM | TrackBack