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Traditional Propaganda
There is something disturbingly reassuring in watching real honest-to-goodness traditional propaganda. It gives you a false sense of superiority, in a sort of twisted way, to chuckle at some of the better examples of ham-fisted story twisting, either of the deliberate or the accidental sort.
The past masters of this, of course, were the Soviets. And for sheer amusement value almost nothing could surpass the antics of Baghdad Bob . So admittedly, in comparison to these masters, the efforts of the Ministry of Defense of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka are somewhat thin gruel. Still, it can be worth a chuckle to follow the twists and turns that propaganda may take.
Most recently the Washington Times, one of the most conservative papers in the US, has the curious distinction of publishing an op-ed in favor of a Socialist government which just won the conventional phase of a civil war with the heavy backing from Communist China (which came about after the US cut off military aid and advice back in 2007). That Monday Op-Ed is now highlighted, in turn, by the Socialist government, albeit with some confusion about the difference between the Washington Times and the Washington Post.
Here’s the front page of the Sri Lankan MoD.
Here is the MoD’s extracted synopsis of how the “Washington Post” (apparently some confusion there with the Times) supports the Sri Lankan way of war.
And here is the Washington Times original.
Strange bedfellows indeed.
On a more directly topical note, how many think that what was happening in Sri Lanka these past four years (out of more than 20 years of conflict) was an insurgency? How many understand it to have become a traditional conventional Civil War with some terrorism thrown in? And what is or should be the role of propaganda for either side? In the US we have laws about propaganda, mostly as a backlash to the First World War. But is there a legitimate role? When does "information" cross the line into "propaganda"?
Traditional conventional
Traditional conventional civil war or phase 3 of insurgency? Love the Mao
Is there a
Is there a role?
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/img...
Seemed to work okay for us for a long time. The key, though, may be to know when to turn off the spigot, and that can be a hard thing to do. Listening to the latest set of Nixon tapes is a grating warning enough of unfettered information, though with the 24/7 spin from nearly every government agency now, what's the difference between spin and propaganda anyway, especially with nearly instaneous media, much of which is from "outside" traditional media?
Maybe the line is tactical vs. strategic propaganda. The USMC got pinged for using the press to roll out a premature announcement of the attack on Fallujah, but if that got a few bad guys jumpy to reveal themselves, I wouldn't quibble with that.
In 2003, for example, initial accounts from the military about the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch from Iraqi forces were faked to rally public support. And in 2005, a Marine Corps spokesman during the siege of the Iraqi city of Fallujah told the U.S. news media that U.S. troops were attacking. In fact, the information was a ruse by U.S. commanders to fool insurgents into revealing their positions.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/02/marine_public_relations_020...
Denominator, Dude you are
Denominator,
Dude you are spilling some dangerous beans, it may not be over ....
Ixnay onthay Amirikithey Serendibay.....
Now it may indeed be public domain...but the Thomellleisaythey may not read same papers...
Sorry to seem to quarrel (I'm really not trying, really) 2X same day.....
Isn't Sri Lanka winning a
Isn't Sri Lanka winning a good thing? Sri Lanka was backed by China, Japan and India.
Why is this propoganda?
I think the Denominator is
I think the Denominator is having a gentle go at certain right-wingers who wish for a Sri Lankan solution in Afghanistan, the kill-em-all option.
Vimothy: It's a little hard
Vimothy: It's a little hard to modernize your economy when you are spending your way into the poorhouse due to a war, which is exactly what Sri Lanka has been doing.
There was another gem on the Sri Lankan MoD site a few weeks ago. In response to British criticism on the way they were fighting the last phase of the war, the MoD published a tirade on why Britain had no right to talk because they were a racist, colonial power who had caused suffering in many spots around the world. Huh?
The civil war was not an insurgency. People seem to forget that the Tigers were not defeating the Sri Lankan Army unconventionally, but CONVENTIONALLY. See the Battle of Elephant Pass for a prime example on how a terrorist group used conventional tactics to defeat a nation's army. Personally, I think some of the COINdinistas are just trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Nick: Again. Please please
Nick: Again. Please please please read Mao. Phase 3 of Maoist insurgency is a transition into CONVENTIONAL warfare while still using unconventional tactics like guerrilla warfare and terrorism alongside, which is what the Tigers were doing.
Flash: Truth be told, its
Flash: Truth be told, its what both sides were doing. Assassinations, terrorism, civilian massacres: It got done by both sides. Check out the number of dead singalese journalists for examples on how the Sri Lankan government went about the job.
Really traditional
Really traditional propaganda: LOTR !!
Watching The Lord of the Rings in Tehran
I wonder which official picked this film, starting to suspect, even hope, that there is a subversive soul manning the controls at seda va sima, central broadcasting. It is way too easy to find political meaning in the film, to draw comparisons to what is happening in real life. There are themes that seem to allude to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the candidate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims to have defeated: the unwanted quest and the risking of life in pursuit of an unanticipated destiny. Could he be Boromir, the imperfect warrior who is heroic at the end, dying to defend humanity? Didn't Mousavi talk about being ready for martyrdom? ...
And so we see political meaning even in the notice that one part of the trilogy is ending, asking us to be ready for the next. In edame dare: This is to be continued. The phrase has become our hesitant slogan, our words of reassurance. As does this conversation, translated from Farsi, from the movie: "I wish the ring had never come to me ... I wish that none of this had happened." "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." In edame dare. This will be continued. People are not going to let up so easily.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1906740,00.html
I am officially convinced
I am officially convinced using the word "terrorist" reduces all of our collective IQs by thirty points when we talk about this stuff.
Terrorist as a noun, as a descriptor for who the enemy is - and by extension, what his purpose is - absolutely destroys all context and objectivity. It's why we utterly fail to recognize our enemies are not monolithic but quite separate and localized.
Yet it also provides unintentional humor like some wildly unqualified fool from the WT waxing poetically about governments he would otherwise have advocated regime change for in their fight against the "terrorists" he knows even less about....
Matt
"Denominator" must be the
"Denominator" must be the most poorly disguised blogger in the history of the medium.
@Sri Lanka haters, It
@Sri Lanka haters,
It worked. What Sareth Fonseka and the SLA did worked . Every other approach did not work.
And why do I think the WT reporter being "wildly unqualified" refers to academic qualifications, or the lack thereof?
Meanwhile "In edame dare" or not, it seems the clerics in Iran want to apply the Iron Fist. Some brave Iranians are going to suffer for their principles now.
Was Ken Pollack's book on
Was Ken Pollack's book on Iraqi WMDs 'traditional' or 'new' propaganda? Some choice quotes:
1) "Saddam Hussein is not Adolf Hitler, mostly because Iraq is not as powerful as Germany was. And defeating Saddam Hussein will not require the same sacrifices as defeating Hitler did. But the threat that Saddam presents to the United States and to the world is just as real, and the one we have today is no less pressing than those we faced in 1941. . . "
2) "Looked at purely from the narrow perspective of U.S. policy toward Iraq, the sooner we undertake the invasion of Iraq the better. Saddam is working to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction progams, and the more time he has, the more lethal that arsenal will become."
3) "Although it is likely that deaths from an invasion would number in the high hundreds for U.S. military personnel and the high thousands for Iraqi civilians, if things did not work out the way we expected them to (a not infrequent occurrence in war), we might suffer several thousand American military personnel killed and several tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed. Of course, we could end up with a virtually painless victory if things worked out better than we expected.."
4) ""Iraq retains a residual biological warfare program and a stockpile of filled munitions, almost certainly including missile warheads. It has also converted a number of L-29 jet trainers into unmanned aircraft that can disseminate both biological and chemical agents."
There's a lot more bull - ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons, chemical stockpiles - and the book was vetted by the NSA and the CIA, no less - not one blacked-out line.
Other guilty parties: Lauren Cook and Dafna Hochman, lead "researchers" for the book. Ari Varon, Leslie Gelb, Larry Korb, Patricia Dorff and the CFR. Bart Aronson, Dan Byman, Martin Indyk, Ben Miller, Andrew Parasilitti, Mark Paris, Bruce Reidel, Gideon Rose, Joe Siegle, Steve Ward, and Michael Weinstein... Adm John Sigler, Lt Gn USMC Bernard Trainor, Col Philip Rudder USMC, Col Chris Miller USAF, Col Rob McClure USA, Cpn Jeffrey Niner (USN), John Hillen (USA), Guillermo Christensen....book was vetted by the NSC and the CIA. Johnathan Karp was the Random House editor. . .
"Random House virtually turned itself inside out to help me get this book written, published and sold."
Publisher Ann Godoff, dep publisher Howard Weill, Ivan Held, Steve Messina, Casey Hampton, Kathy Rosenbloom, Amy Edelman - thanks also to Libby McGuire, Carol Schneider, Tom Perry, Todd Doughty, Elizabeth Fogarty, Jake Greenberg, ...etc.
He dedicated the book to his wife Andrea. Is she thrilled with the bloodshed that resulted? Gotta wonder.
g.d, What are all those
g.d,
What are all those people "guilty" of? Being taken in by Saddams last bullshit miscalculation? You forgot to indict the worlds collective intelligence services as well...our closest ally (England), Iraq's closest ally (Russia)...on and on? He did a very good job of convincing people he still had the goods, apparently because he was more afraid of his neighbors then the US/Coalition.
Maybe Saddam and his regime bear the responsibilty for the carnage.
They are guilty of
They are guilty of deliberately lying to Congress and to the American public in order to start a war based on lies - and yes, since they are government employees, this is a Smith-Mundt violation, punishable by imprisonment within the U.S. prison system. Got it, jack?
P.S. I value the lives of
P.S. I value the lives of every dead soldier in Iraq far more than I do the lives of the stinking lying propaganda monkeys in the halls of Washington. Just in case their was some misunderstanding - yes, the wrong people died. There - I said it.
Perhaps, you would care to
Perhaps, you would care to explain to all of us which reports to believe and which ones are disinformation? Bear in mind there are only about 10000 per day to peruse. Also bear in mind the best disinformation contains 75% truth and a critical 25% lies. Don't make any mistakes now, this may be a Smith-Mundt violation, punishable by imprisonment within the U.S. prison system. Got it, jack?
Yeah no goddamned reply to
Yeah no goddamned reply to that is there?
Thats what I
Thats what I thought
Disdainful.
interesting... How to Lose
interesting... How to Lose Thigh Fat
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