Secret Pentagon Propaganda Program - Zarqawi

[springhill]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890.html

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists.

For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the "U.S. Home Audience" as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.

Some senior intelligence officers believe Zarqawi's role may have been overemphasized by the propaganda campaign, which has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist. Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.

[Kagemusha]

1. Not news to the informed.

But hey, at least the Washington Post's news reporters noticed, while their editors bury.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

2. Haha, most informed people have known this for years.

The question is, why is the mainstream media always two to three years behind on all the big issues when it comes to government propaganda or lies?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

9. Zarqawi=Emmanuel Goldstein .. and then there are some of us

that believes he died, as reported, in the beginning of the war.

[pinniped]

3. They're conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of their....

propaganda creation, al-Zarqawi.

The US created this mythical dude.

There is no $25,000,000.00 reward.

[lvx35]

4. So they made him a scape goat to turn the insurgents against?

I suppose then his magnified role indicates his violent actions were actually benificial for propaganda reasons, things like bombing Iraqi civilians. I just wonder if certain elements didn't consider that sort of thing more benificial than they should have.

[FloridaPat]

5. wonder what happens to a gov't when no one believes a word it says.

My God, the bodies * has left behind him: Iraq, Twin Towers, US gov't credibility (not that there was much left), US economy, the armed services, the naitonal debt, US international reputation, the environment. Hopefully the repub party and the religious right when this is over.

[reprehensor]

6. "U.S. Home Audience" as one of the targets of broader propaganda campaign

nice

[Disturbed]

8. If the US/UK ended their Occupation of Iraq

the Shi'ites and Kurds would hunt down al Q and kick them out of Iraq.

The Insurgency is 95% Iraqi.

[creeksneakers2]

7. Huge story missed in article

All along, the White House has claimed that attacks in Iraq are the work of Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq because Zarqawi wants to cause a civil war. The Bush administration, and the right wing media have pointed to a "captured letter" from Zarqawi to Osama Bin Laden advocating provoking a civil war.

We now have proof that story was fabricated. We have proof the White House has lied about the reasons for civil war in Iraq. The Washington Post skipped over this unpleasant truth. The story in the Post only refers to Zarqawi boasting about suicide attacks.

From the Post:

"One slide in the same briefing, for example, noted that a "selective leak" about arqawi was made to Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter based in Baghdad. Filkins's resulting article, about a letter supposedly written by Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq, ran on the Times front page on Feb. 9, 2004."

This is what the Times article actually said:

"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 8 - American officials here have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help to wage a ''sectarian war'' in Iraq in the next months.
The Americans say they believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United States for suspected ties to Al Qaeda, wrote the undated 17-page document. Mr. Zarqawi is believed to be operating here in Iraq.

(snip)

The memo says extremists are failing to enlist support inside the country, and have been unable to scare the Americans into leaving. It even laments Iraq's lack of mountains in which to take refuge.

Yet mounting an attack on Iraq's Shiite majority could rescue the movement, according to the document. The aim, the document contends, is to prompt a counterattack against the Arab Sunni minority.

Such a ''sectarian war'' will rally the Sunni Arabs to the religious extremists, the document argues. It says a war against the Shiites must start soon -- at ''zero hour'' -- before the Americans hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis. That is scheduled for the end of June

But there is still time to mount a war against the Shiites, thereby to set off a wider war, he writes, if attacks are well under way before the turnover of sovereignty in June. After that, the writer suggests, any attacks on Shiites will be viewed as Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence that will find little support among the people."

[HamdenRice]

11. IMPORTANT catch!

This just shows that stupefying laziness of MSM journalists. They all have access to electronic news data bases like Lexis/Nexis, yet they miraculously fail to do simple searches like this to connect the dots.

Your catch blows away one of the main lies about the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

[creeksneakers2]

14. Thanks

I'm glad somebody else feels that way.

[GeorgeGist]

10. Pandering to the needs of haters...

to be focused while not losing the unfocused hate itself. Very diabolical.

[No Exit]

12. I don't believe in Zarqawi

I never really believed in him.

I HAD believed in Bin Laden, and after getting burned by THAT lie, I was hesitant to swallow all this bullshit they constantly put forth about "Zarqawi".

Especially after I saw posted news articles from AP that reported his death some 2-3 years ago. And then there's that troublesome business about how he'd lost his leg to a bomb, but then he's supposedly filmed--masked, and holding Nick Berg prior to killing Berg--with two sound legs.

I don't believe in Zarqawi. And I really am beginning to not believe in Bin Laden, either. Whose word do we have that Bin Laden was involved in 9/11? I've never really heard/read a SINGLE word spoken by Bin Laden himself, b/c I don't speak his language. I have only the media's and the military's word that Bin Laden did 9/11. Two very trustworthy sources:sarcasm: I'll grant you, but all the same, I don't believe most of this crap anymore.

[moondust]

13. Gotta have a boogeyman.

It also gives the impression that we have things under control, that we know who's behind all this trouble and things will improve dramatically as soon as we eliminate him. So don't give up on the war effort, Mr. and Mrs. Sixpack!