Anatomy of a typical US military propaganda campaign.

[JohnyCanuck]

The ever changing story: Anatomy of a typical US military propaganda campaign.

This is a well worn pattern for our federal military. A sizable clump of peasants with unpronounceable names from an equally unpronounceable village on the other side of the globe are slaughtered by a drone, air strike, or troops on the ground. The initial story appears complete with quotes from locals, local officials, and aid workers- many if not all going on the record and giving their names- on or near the scene that lay out the basic facts of the story- that the US killed a bunch of civilians. And within hours of this come the denials from the US military. And not just any denials but creative ones. If not denying outright that anyone was killed at all (which is sometimes their first reaction) the US military will then offer up their own story in which the evil "Taliban" or "Al Qaeda in Iraq" killed the civilians in question. The sources for the military's side of the story are almost never named, were no where near the incident, and have no first hand knowledge of the event in question at all.

This doesn't stop our "liberal" media from giving the stories from anonymous military sources far removed from the atrocity equal if not more weight than the named local sources on the ground.

This recent bombing is unusual in one respect however, the speed in which their story has changed. Usually the US military staggers out their changing story lines on events like these over a period of months if not years . . . . long past the time that anyone remembers or cares and long after the headline has faded. The text book case for this propaganda technique is the Pat Tillman episode in which the truth was kept from emerging by the military (and some say it still hasn't emerged) for literally years. The Jessica Lynch propaganda campaign is another example of this technique. The Lynch campaign was an even more successful campaign than the Tillman one. At least we were spared a movie of the week that put the deliberate lies of the US military about Tillman's death on the boob tube for millions to suck up without question. We were not so lucky when it came to the Lynch fairy tale which was put on the silver screen by NBC in a matter of only a few months (don't hold your breath for that filthy lie of a movie to be rerun anytime soon.)

What these stories all have in common is that they involved deliberate lies on the part of the US military. Not lies of omission. Not "mistakes". Not "misquotes". Not "confusion". Lies. These were stories that were invented out of whole cloth when the truth was known and knowingly fed to an unquestioning semi government controlled and highly consolidated corporate media for them to disperse to an equally unquestioning (and uncaring) American public.


http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3665-Boston-Libertarian-Examiner~y2009m6d5-The-ever-changing-story--Anatomy-of-a-typical-US-military-propaganda-campaign