reminder of what sy hersh said on democracynow on may 24th

...the thing that’s amazing about this government, the thing that’s really spectacular, is even now how they can get their way mostly with a lot of the American press. For example, I do know -- and, you know, you have to take it on face value. If you’ve been reading me for a long time, you know a lot of the things I write are true or come out to be more or less true. I do know that within the last month, maybe four, four-and-a-half weeks ago, they made a decision that because of the totally dwindling support for the war in Iraq, we go back to the al-Qaeda card, and we start talking about al-Qaeda. And the next thing you know, right after that, Bush went to the Southern Command -- this was a month ago -- and talked, mentioned al-Qaeda twenty-seven times in his speech. He did so just the other day this week -- al-Qaeda this, al-Qaeda that. All of a sudden, the poor Iraqi Sunnis, I mean, they can’t do anything without al-Qaeda. It’s only al-Qaeda that’s dropping the bombs and causing mayhem. It’s not the Sunni and Shia insurgents or militias. And this policy just gets picked up, although there’s absolutely no empirical basis. Most of the pros will tell you the foreign fighters are a couple percent, and then they’re sort of leaderless in the sense that there’s no overall direction of the various foreign fighters. You could call them al-Qaeda. You can also call them jihadists and Salafists that want to die fighting the Americans or the occupiers in Iraq and they come across the border. Whether this is -- there’s no attempt to suggest there’s any significant coordination of these groups by bin Laden or anybody else, and the press just goes gaga. And so, they went gaga a little bit over the Syrian connection to the activities in Tripoli. It’s just amazing to me, you guys.

b- don't rule out that a lot of reporters/editors/publishers are probably also paid good money to broadcast particular messages

Posted by: b real | Jun 23, 2007 9:01:50 PM | 1

A Marine Tutorial on Media ‘Spin’

[T]he episode might have gone unexamined if not for Tim McGirk, a reporter for Time magazine. In January 2006, he sent an e-mail message to the Second Marine Division in Haditha, asking questions that clearly conveyed his suspicion that an atrocity had been committed.

The Second Division wanted a response to each question from its Third Battalion, which was responsible for fighting insurgents in Haditha. So on Jan. 29, 2006, the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, gathered his executive officer, Maj. Kevin M. Gonzalez, Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, the commander of the company involved in the shootings, and First Lt. Adam P. Mathes, to hash out answers.

The four officers produced a five-page memo of “talking points” and answers that displayed a searing view of American journalists conspiring to undermine the war effort.

The memo, excerpted below with a few typos, came to light in a military hearing earlier this month for one of the accused officers.
...
McGirk: Are the marines in this unit still serving in Haditha?

Memo: Yes, we are still fighting terrorists of Al Qaida in Iraq in Haditha. (“Fighting terrorists associated with Al Qaida” is stronger language than “serving.” The American people will side more with someone actively fighting a terrorist organization that is tied to 9/11 than with someone who is idly “serving,” like in a way one “serves” a casserole. It’s semantics, but in reporting and journalism, words spin the story.)

Posted by: b | Jun 24, 2007 3:45:36 AM | 2

Does anyone there get the irony that there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq until it moved into the power vacuum the USA created?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jun 24, 2007 4:27:17 AM | 3

I think this new "Qaeda" rubric (note the loss of "al") while a retrenchment to the same old tried and true snake oil infantilism, may also connect and distinguish between, for the new policy of arming Sunni insurgent groups like the 1920 brigade - as if to disconnect these groups from their hostility to occupation, and re-brand them as allies in the war on terror. This policy of course being very, very risky to the entire propaganda effort against giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Which in this case could be made as being literally, true. A nightmare of these epic proportions calls for an advance re-branding should the escapade go bad (and will in all likelyhood) so their eventual return to anti-occupation can be painted as traitorous Qaeda sympathizers - instead of national resistance.

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 24, 2007 4:55:40 AM | 4

it's not just MSM stories out of iraq. a story today on cnn.com, about lebanese soldiers being killed while dismantling a bomb in a palestinian refugee camp, cites the islamist militants who placed it there as "al Qaeda inspired" - 2nd line of the first paragraph.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/23/lebanon.ap/index.html

...leave no stone unturned i guess :/

Posted by: esme in paris | Jun 24, 2007 6:07:28 AM | 5

A friend asked when the derivatives market will
explode, and whether he should be all in gold.
Told him not to worry, our Leader will save US.
US Marine Reserves had better start practicing:
http://tinyurl.com/3e28js

Posted by: Harold Lichtleitner | Jun 24, 2007 3:47:45 PM | 6

So they have abolished the Iraq civil war. It was "disintegrating the narrative," as anna missed has noted. And the complex divisions and alliances of the ME.

Return to the original bogeymen: Al Queda and Iran, with an occasional boost from Syria. Keep those narratives neat and the bogeymen dark as pitch, no digressions, no greys.

Besides, a formidable, grand, foreign enemy, who attacks anywhere and everywhere, may distract attention from the mushrooming domestic drama of corruption, political manipulation, and lies at the highest levels of the Justice Dept and throughout the Cheney-Bush mock-government. If they can just revive that rising pan-Islamic menace one more time.

Posted by: small coke | Jun 24, 2007 8:22:55 PM | 7