Perfidious Propaganda and Bush’s Offensive

When you think about it, it’s not such a bad idea. Nefarious and foul, but logical. If you’re military brass and you want to influence the perception of the war back home, you just have the boys in uniform dash off a few letters to their hometown papers, saying all is just ducky in the trenches.

Problem: the boys are busy trying to stay alive. No problem, you just write their letters for them. One letter will do. Just write it, Xerox it, and order some of the guys to sign it. Or not; just mail it to their hometown paper, unsigned. Nobody’s the wiser back in the world, unless somebody catches on.

Now does that stink, or what?

Speaking of stinking, President Bush has a PR offensive going too:

Bush rejected criticism that progress is too slow in Iraq, saying Americans are not hearing the real story. "It's a lot better than you probably think," the president said, adding that people who have been in Iraq are stunned by the stories at home.

He said schools and hospitals are reopening, children are getting immunizations and water and electricity are coming back. "Life is getting better," he said. [Link]

Well sure we’re not hearing the real story. The Bush Administration and its Flying Monkeys of Perpetual War are throwing up a smoke screen, and in some cases using our troops to do it. Let’s hear the "Support the Troops" Republicans comment on that one, while they try to make peace-loving Americans feel un-American for our dissent against it.

The real story is that life still sucks in Iraq, and 70% of the work force is unemployed. And the job market is infested with corruption. If the kids are going back to school, great. They went to school before “coalition forces” attacked Iraq. I’d love to see what would result if you passed out paper and crayons in a Baghdad school, and asked the kids to draw pictures of what life has been like since last spring. Actually, I probably wouldn’t want to see that.