Are the GWOT and the "anti liberal media" noise machine, similar overreactions?

[host]

This was on "liberal CNN", two days ago:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...itroom.02.html
Aired December 11, 2006 - 17:00 ET

...BLITZER: He went to Kenya, where he was treated as a rock star.

Barack Obama, he is, in fact, a potential presidential candidate. We will watch together with you, Jack. Thanks very much.

And, as Jack just noted, he is clearly a rising political star, and he's a favorite among many Democrats looking toward the next presidential election. And that means a lot of scrutiny for the Illinois senator, from his head, right down to his clothes.

Let's turn to our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield -- Jeff.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Wolf, the political community has gone predictably hysterical over Senator Barack Obama's presidential flirtation.

So, in the spirit of retched excess, let's take a look not at what he's saying, but at another crucially vital matter: what he is wearing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD (voice-over): <b>The senator was in New Hampshire over the weekend, sporting what's getting to be the classic Obama look. Call it business casual, a jacket, a collared shirt, but no tie.</b>

It is a look the senator seems to favor. And why not? It is dressy enough to suggest seriousness of purpose, but without the stuffiness of a tie, much less a suit. There is a comfort level here that reflects one of Obama's strongest political assets, a sense that he is comfortable in his own skin, that he knows who he is.

If you want a striking contrast, check out Senator John Kerry as he campaigned back in 2004. He often appeared without a tie, but clad in a blazer, the kind of casual look you see at country clubs and lawn parties in the Hamptons and other toned (ph) locations.

When President Bush wanted in casual mode, he skipped the jacket entirely. Third-generation Skull and Bones at Yale? Don't be silly. Nobody here but us Texas ranchers.

You can think of Bush's apparel as a kind of homage to Ronald Reagan. He may have spent much of his life in Hollywood, but the brush-cutting ranch hand was the image his followers loved, just as the Kennedy sea ferry look provided a striking contrast with, say, Richard Nixon, who apparently couldn't even set out on a beach walk without that "I wish I had spent more time at the office" look.

But, <b>in the case of Obama, he may be walking around with a sartorial time bomb. Ask yourself, is there any other major public figure who dresses the way he does? Why, yes. It is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, unlike most of his predecessors, seems to have skipped through enough copies of "GQ" to find the jacket-and-no-tie look agreeable.</b>

And maybe that's not the comparison a possible presidential contender really wants to evoke.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: Now, it is one thing to have a <b>last name that sounds like Osama and a middle name, Hussein, that is probably less than helpful. But an outfit that reminds people of a charter member of the axis of evil,</b> why, this could leave his presidential hopes hanging by a thread. Or is that threads? -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Jeff Greenfield reporting for us -- Jeff, thank you very much. ....

We witnessed the spectacle of the appointee to the office of Secretary of defense, admitting to a senate committee that "we were not winning the war in Iraq"...and meanwhile, folks who believe that CNN is "too liberal", and get their "news" from Fox, the NRO, LGF, and countless other "noise machine sites", suck up the "reporting" of this guy:

http://billroggio.com/archives/2006/...ry_and_the.php

........What a terrible situation to be in, having to defend yourself because of your profession. I've always said that the hardest thing about embedding (besides leaving my family) is wearing the badge that says 'PRESS.' That hasn't changed. I hide the badge whenever I can get away with it.

This isn't the first time I encountered this sentiment from the troops. I experienced this attitude from the Marines while I was in western Iraq last year, and the soldiers in the Canadian Army in Afghanistan also expressed frustration with the media's presentation of the war.

Perhaps this tension between the media and the military is nothing new. But it appalls me none the less.

I think that the reaction to the media is an overreaction, just as the military reaction to the 9/11 attacks was a gross overreaching.

Where might we be today, if we all got our news from the same news gathering and reporting outlets, if the "media is liberal" movement had not created it's radio talk network, internet blog network, and the reaction to 9/11 was an assessment that all of the hijackers had died in the attack, and there was nothing to the idea of a massive military buildup and the invasion of two countries, and the passage of repressive measures like the patriot acts, and the Gitmo and CIA prisons, and the end run around the FISA court?

What if the "media" is not especially liberal, there are no "sleeper cells" of terrorists in the US, and al-Qaeda was not an extraordinary threat to overreact to? Wouldn't this country be better off, more secure, more united, wealthier, with a much better reputation in the international community, than it enjoys now?

[Seaver]

I don't exactly know what these two articles have in common other than a sophomoric "report" from CNN which never should have been printed.

So this reporter does not like the fact that the military does not appreciate the defeatism spread through the press since day one. Do you not remember the "Quagmire: Iraq" headlines when the fastest advance in the history of mankind was slowed down by a dust storm? After 3 years the military stops trusting these reporters who dreams at night of writing a news report with as much impact on the world as Cronkite (sp?) did in Vietnam when he managed to turn an absolute victory (Tet Offensive) into the worst defeat since Pearl.

If CNN was actually interested in "attacking" Obama, they would not bother with his middle name but his politics. They would attack him for saying things which imply that Republicans wouldn't vote for him because they are racist.

I don't mind Obama, he's an outstanding public speaker. I just get extremely upset how if I don't vote for him it's because of skin color, when in reality I could care less.

[dc_dux]

When did Obama imply "that Republicans wouldn't vote for him because they are racist?

Do you have a link?

[host]

Originally Posted by Seaver

I don't exactly know what these two articles have in common other than a sophomoric "report" from CNN which never should have been printed.

So this reporter does not like the fact that the military does not appreciate the defeatism spread through the press since day one. Do you not remember the "Quagmire: Iraq" headlines when the fastest advance in the history of mankind was slowed down by a dust storm? After 3 years the military stops trusting these reporters who dreams at night of writing a news report with as much impact on the world as Cronkite (sp?) did in Vietnam when he managed to turn an absolute victory (Tet Offensive) into the worst defeat since Pearl.

If CNN was actually interested in "attacking" Obama, they would not bother with his middle name but his politics. They would attack him for saying things which imply that Republicans wouldn't vote for him because they are racist.

I don't mind Obama, he's an outstanding public speaker. I just get extremely upset how if I don't vote for him it's because of skin color, when in reality I could care less.

Seaver, my premise for this thread is not difficult to understand. I am putting forward, for discussion....my suspicion that it is the overreaction of folks who voted for, and support the politicians who originated and prosecuted the GWOT....the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the eroding of our former constitutional rights of protections against intrusion by our government, against invasion of our privacy, false imprisonment, incarceration without a hearing before a judge, access to an attorney, etc....that have, ironically, made us, and the rest of the woirld. much less safe.

Further...I am saying that, if you get "your news" from partisan outlets, instead of from corporate media, you are much more inclined to believe what you posted.....that the "military" was a "victim", of three years of adverse media coverage.

It is more accurate, Seaver to assess what we now know....the US activity in the GWOT has eliminated Iran's two arch enemies, on two of its' borders...
Saddam's Iraq, and the Taleban in Afghanistan. Saddam effectively provided checks against shi'a and kurdish ambition, and hemmed in Iran, with much less bloodshed than the US military has managed, even after he was weakened by the first gulf war. In May, 2001, the US paid the Taleban $70 million to reimburse Afghani farmers, after the opium crop was eradicated by the Taleban.

The US overreacted after 9/11, and if the articles below, about Cheney and the Saudis are an indication, the M.E. is on the threshhold of an escalated, international shi's vs. Sunni civil war, with Iran much strenghtened by the US failings of the last four years.

Seaver the US military did not wait three years to protest news media coverage about it's endeavors...if only you could be moved, not just by a few days of coverage of a "sandstorm induced quagmire", stressed probably by one of the alternative media sources that you rely on for "news", but by the record of the concerted propaganda efforts of the US military, beginning at least by 9/11, and continuing until today. If only John Rendon, the Lincoln Group, and the staged Jessica Lynch rescue by US SOF could register with you, in proportion to their, scope, expense, influence, and the damage that they do to US military credibility, maybe you could better understand what this thread is about.

Just as there is no "liberal media bias", there is no "terror", to wage "war", by the US military....as if it were an opposing army, sponsored by a competing sovereign state.

These ideas, are all "in your head", and the cost and blowback of believing them and acting against them, is costing the rest of us, tremendously,and needlessly. Read the LA & NY Times, the WAPO, Time and Newsweek, watch CNN, fact check on the internet....and you will become....more like...me !!!!

....and you will be RIGHT...much more often, you will back less extreme positions.....you will become less militant, more suspicious of your government, you will back no pre-emptive invasions, and more of your predictions about the outcomes of political issues, will come to pass.....

Is the news media reporting, Seaver, more out of synch with your point of view, or of mine and Robert Gates.....because the "liberal media", Gates, and host, all believe that the US is not winning the war in Iraq....quite a spectacle, after more than 40 months....the most powerful military in the history of the world is unable to contain an insurgency in Iraq.

....and you, Seaver? Do you really believe that the military has patiently endured unfounded media reporting for three years...or that the "media", and the "liberals" are the problem? You will only find that story line where you get your "news".....it is a ridiculous premise, when the post 9/11 decisions of the white house and the pentagon, and their outcomes, are fully examined.

....and the "media is liberal", noise machine....will weaken, and without it's audience of faithful believers, finally diminish to a whisper.....

Think of it, no more $700 billion annual military/intelligence budgets, no more dead, maimed, and shellshocked US troops and dead civilians in pre-empted, war shattered countries....no more Saudi threats of backing the insurgents that our aggressive government created......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendon_Group

.......Publics relations work in the war on terror

The San Jose Mercury News reported in October 2001 that the Pentagon had awarded Rendon a four-month, $397,000 contract to handle PR aspects of U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan. Rendon and Pentagon officials declined to discuss details of the firm's work, which included monitoring international news media, conducting focus groups and recommending "ways the US military can counter disinformation and improve its own public communications." All of which can be found in public Contracts between The Rendon Group and the Department of Defense.

The New York Times reported in February 2002 that the Pentagon was using the Rendon Group to assist its new propaganda agency, the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) Of which it only consulted The Rendon Group. However, the OSI was publicly disbanded following a backlash when Pentagon officials said the new office would engage in "black" propaganda (disinformation) which The Rendon Group was not part of.[5][6]

In December, 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported that the Rendon Group in 2004 received $1.4 million to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai with media relations. According to the paper, after seven months Karzai and Zalmay Khalilzad, then the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, were ready to get rid of the company. Despite the lack of support from Karzai and the ambassador, the company received another $3.9 million for anti-drug programs from the State Department and not the department of Defense. The paper quoted Jeff Raleigh, who helped oversee Rendon in Kabul for the U.S. Embassy, as saying the contract was "a rip-off of the U.S taxpayer". Later Jeff Raleigh's Afghan supervisor said Jeff wanted full control of The Rendon Group and was out of his bound. Furthermore the same official, Ambassador Daod, in a signed letter said that The Rendon Group did a great job and really helped his office. [7].....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...nt/3028585.stm
Last Updated: Thursday, 15 May, 2003, 08:50 GMT 09:50 UK

Saving Private Lynch story 'flawed'

By John Kampfner

......Jessica amnesia

"There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."

Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.

"We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital.

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance.

But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.


Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen
General Vincent Brooks

When footage of the rescue was released, General Vincent Brooks, US spokesman in Doha, said: "Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen, loyal to a creed that they know that they'll never leave a fallen comrade.".....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Group

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwash...e/13295806.htm
Posted on Wed, Nov. 30, 2005
U.S. military pays Iraqis for positive news stories on war
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Army officers have been secretly paying Iraqi journalists to produce upbeat newspaper, radio and television reports about American military operations and the conduct of the war in Iraq.

U.S. officials in Washington said the payments were made through the Baghdad Press Club, an organization they said was created more than a year ago by U.S. Army officers. They are part of an extensive American military-run information campaign -- including psychological warfare experts -- intended to build popular support for U.S.-led stabilization efforts and erode support for Sunni Muslim insurgents.

Members of the Press Club are paid as much as $ 200 a month, depending on how many positive pieces they produce.

Under military rules, information operations are restricted to influencing the attitudes and behavior of foreign governments and people. One form of information operations -- psychological warfare -- can use doctored or false information to deceive or damage the enemy or to bolster support for American efforts.

Many military officials, however, said they were concerned that the payments to Iraqi journalists and other covert information operations in Iraq had become so extensive that they were corroding the effort to build democracy and undermining U.S. credibility in Iraq. They also worry that information in the Iraqi press that's been planted or paid for by the U.S. military could "blow back" to the American public.

Eight current and former military, defense and other U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington agreed to discuss the payments to Iraqi reporters and other American military information operations because they fear that the efforts are promoting practices that are unacceptable for a democracy. They requested anonymity to avoid retaliation.

"We are teaching them (Iraqi journalists) the wrong things," one military officer said.

Moreover, the defense and military officials said, the U.S. public is at risk of being influenced by the information operations because what's planted in the Iraqi media can be picked up by international news organizations and Internet bloggers.

"There is no 'local' media anymore. All media is potentially international. The Web makes it all public. We need to ... eliminate the idea that psychological operations and information operations can issue any kind of information to the media ever. Period," said a senior military official in Baghdad who has knowledge of American psychological operations in Iraq.

Finally, military and defense officials said, the more extensive the information operations, the more likely they'll be discovered, thereby undermining the credibility of the U.S. armed forces and the American government.

"It's a culture of being loose with the truth. We'd better stop it or we are going to end up like we did in Vietnam," said a senior U.S. defense official in Washington. "The problem is if you get caught, it destroys everything, and they don't realize the collateral damage potential."

Spokesmen for the American command in Iraq and for the Tampa, Fla.-based U.S. Central Command, which has overall responsibility for American military operations in the Middle East, said they had no immediate comment.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said, "We're looking into this issue . . . to ascertain all of the facts."

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld hailed what he called the country's "free media," saying they were acting as "a relief valve" through which Iraqis have been engaging in democratic debate and dialogue.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that the U.S. military has been paying Iraqi newspapers to print pro-American stories written by U.S. information operations troops.

A Knight Ridder investigation has found that the American military's information operations have been far more extensive.

In addition to the Army's secret payments to Iraqi newspaper, radio and television journalists for positive stories, U.S. psychological-warfare officers have been involved in writing news releases and drafting media strategies for top commanders, two defense officials said.

On at least one occasion, psychological warfare specialists have taken a group of international journalists on a tour of Iraq's border with Syria, a route used by Islamic terrorists and arms smugglers, one of the officials said.

Usually, these duties are the responsibility of military public-affairs officers.

In Iraq, public affairs staff at the American-run multinational headquarters in Baghdad have been combined with information operations experts in an organization known as the Information Operations Task Force.

The unit's public affairs officers are subservient to the information operations experts, military and defense officials said.

The result is a "fuzzing up" of what's supposed to be a strict division between public affairs, which provides factual information about U.S. military operations, and information operations, which can use propaganda and doctored or false information to influence enemy actions, perceptions and behavior.

Information operations are intended to "influence foreign adversary audiences using psychological operations capabilities," according to a Sept. 27, 2004, memo sent to top American commanders by the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers.

Myers warned that putting public affairs and information operations in the same office had "the potential to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the public."

The payments to Iraqi journalists originally were intended to nurture a fledgling domestic press corps by rewarding Iraqi journalists who put their lives and the safety of their families at risk by attending U.S. military briefings in the high security Green Zone in Baghdad, where American officials live and work.

"These guys had to take extraordinary risk to cover our stories," said a U.S. military officer in the United States who's familiar with the program.

The effort, however, "has gotten out of hand," said an American military official in Baghdad.

"The Iraqi population doesn't realize that some of the information" they receive from their news media "is bought and paid for by the United States," said the senior defense official in Washington. ........

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...rss_topstories
Official: Saudis to back Sunnis if U.S. leaves Iraq
POSTED: 12:55 p.m. EST, December 13, 2006

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back the Sunnis if the United States pulls out of Iraq, according to a senior American official.

The official said the king "read the riot act" to the vice president when the two met last month in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/wo...rtner=homepage

<b>Saudis Say They Might Back Sunnis if U.S. Leaves Iraq</b>

By HELENE COOPER
Published: December 13, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration that it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq, according to American and Arab diplomats.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia conveyed that message to Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks ago during Mr. Cheney’s whirlwind visit to Riyadh, the officials said. During the visit, King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran, and pushed for Washington to encourage the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, senior Bush administration officials said.

The Saudi warning reflects fears among America’s Sunni Arab allies about Iran’s rising influence in Iraq, coupled with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. King Abdullah II of Jordan has also expressed concern about rising Shiite influence, and about the prospect that the Shiite-dominated government would use Iraqi troops against the Sunni population.....

[Seaver]

Ok host, I'm leaving this thread. If you do not believe that there are terrorists out there, if you do not believe that we are at war with those who wished to attack and kill us long before Iraq, then we have no basis to converse with.

[boatin]

Since you're gone, I guess you won't see this, but...

The folks who are in a civil war in Iraq have long wished to attack and kill us? I don't question that there are terrorists out there, but just so I'm tracking: is that what you're saying, Seaver?