Didn't the recent surge, increased appropriations, rhetoric, etc. turn the tide?
We were told things are improving, at least that is what the war mongerers told us. Why just last week we heard that 7 out of 10 Afghans want us there, etc. To wit,and somewhat in conflict with those claims consider the following items:
Teams of Militants Launch Bold Attack in Central Kabul
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: January 18, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — A team of militants launched a spectacular assault at the heart of the Afghan government Monday, with two men detonating suicide bombs and the rest fighting to the death only 50 yards from the gates of the presidential palace...
...The attacks, the latest in a series targeting the Afghan capital, paralyzed the city for hours, as hundreds of Afghan commandos converged and opened fire. The battle unfolded in the middle of Pashtunistan Square, a traffic circle that holds the palace of President Hamid Karzai, the Ministry of Justice and the Central Bank, the target of the attack...
As the gun battle raged, another suicide bomber — this one driving an ambulance — struck a traffic circle a half-mile away, sending a second mass of bystanders fleeing in terror.
Five hours after the attack began, gunfire was still echoing through the downtown, as commandos searched for holdouts in a nearby office building. Afghan officials said that three soldiers and two civilians — including one child — were killed, and at least 71 people were wounded. The Faroshga market, one of the city’s most popular shopping malls, lay in ruins, shattered and burning and belching black smoke...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igDOD Spends More on Domestic PsyOps Than On Foreign PsyOps
By: emptywheel Friday February 6, 2009 1:16 pm
The AP just did a great investigation on how much money DOD is spending on PR and outreach (via Noah Shachtman). There are lots of nausea-inducing details in the story: that PR funds have grown 63% in the last five years, that DOD has almost as many people working in PR as the State Department employs altogether.
But what gets me is that DOD is spending more for Domestic PsyOps (otherwise known as Public Affairs) than it spends on Foreign PsyOps.
The biggest chunk of funds — about $1.6 billion — goes into recruitment and advertising. Another $547 million goes into public affairs, which reaches American audiences. And about $489 million more goes into what is known as psychological operations, which targets foreign audiences...
...But on Dec. 12, the Pentagon's inspector general released an audit finding that the public affairs office may have crossed the line into propaganda. The audit found the Department of Defense "may appear to merge inappropriately" its public affairs with operations that try to influence audiences abroad. It also found that while only 89 positions were authorized for public affairs, 126 government employees and 31 contractors worked there...
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/02/06/dod-spends-more-on-domestic-psyops-than-on-foreign-psyops/Big Brass Bull: Pentagon Deceit on Media Manipulation Confirmed
A few days ago, we noted the revelations by Stars and Stripes that the Pentagon was using a shadowy PR firm to identify the political leanings of journalists trying to cover the "Good War" in Afghanistan (as well as the "Forgotten War" in Iraq). The idea, clearly, was to encourage and reward "pro-war" reporters while planting a big red flag on the backs of any writers considered less than gung-ho about the imperial bloodshed in Muslim lands.
Naturally, the Pentagon denied that the vetting program operated by the Rendon Group – which was hired by the Bush gang to help instigate the mass murder in Iraq – was in any way a sinister, slimy attempt to manipulate the news in order to make the endless slaughter of the Terror War more palatable for the folks back home. Perish the thought! declared the brass. Why, goodness mercy me, the only aim of the program is to help reporters tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. As Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman put it after S&S first broke the story: "It’s a good article if it’s accurate. It’s a bad article if it’s inaccurate. That’s the only measurement that we use here at the Defense Department." Makes you want to puddle up, don't it?
Well, Stars and Stripes has done something almost unheard-of in modern journalism – followed up on a story with a skeptical stance toward the bland assurances of authority – and guess what they found? Go ahead, try – you'll never guess. They found that the Pentagon was lying! From S&S:
Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”
http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-late...Just my dos centavos
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