Thread: VIDEO: The Art of Selling War - Directed by Veteran Marine Corps Media Spokesman

SPIN: The Art of Selling War

Video
SPIN: The Art of Selling War

Directed by Josh Rushing, a veteran Marine Corps media spokesman, "SPIN: The Art of Selling War" is an investigative documentary that looks at the standard justification for going to war by the American administrations of past and present.

In case you missed it..


Is This Media manipulation on a grand scale?
Updated: 04/15/03
New pictures of " crowd" in the square: Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3 Picture 4
Yes, the occupation has begun.


See Also:A tale of two photos

04/10/03

April 6th: Iraqi National Congress founder, Ahmed Chalabi is flown into the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah by the Pentagon. Chalabi, along with 700 fighters of his "Free Iraqi Forces" are airlifted aboard four massive C17 military transport planes. Chalabi and the INC are Washington favorites to head the new Iraqi government. A photograph is taken of Chalabi and members of his Free Iraqi Forces militia as they arrive in Nasiriyah.

April 9th: One of the "most memorable images of the war" is created when U.S. troops pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Fardus Square. Oddly enough... a photograph is taken of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to one of Chalabi's militia members... he is near Fardus Square to greet the Marines. How many members of the pro-American Free Iraqi Forces were in and around Fardus Square as the statue of Saddam came tumbling down?

The up close action video of the statue being destroyed is broadcast around the world as proof of a massive uprising. Still photos grabbed off of Reuters show a long-shot view of Fardus Square... it's empty save for the U.S. Marines, the International Press, and a small handful of Iraqis. There are no more than 200 people in the square at best. The Marines have the square sealed off and guarded by tanks. A U.S. mechanized vehicle is used to pull the statue of Saddam from it's base. The entire event is being hailed as an equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling... but even a quick glance of the long-shot photo shows something more akin to a carefully constructed media event tailored for the television cameras.

The photographs tell the story...

Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi
Jordanian Painted As Foreign Threat To Iraq's Stability
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006; A01

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.

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.

Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi

America's Ministry of Propaganda exposed

by Pen

Mon Jul 04, 2005 at 01:31:25 AM PDT

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-g...ber/011378.html
Excerpts:
The 56-page investigation was assembled by USAF Colonel (Ret.) Sam Gardiner.

"Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence,
Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic
Psychological Operations in Gulf II" identifies more than 50 stories about
the Iraq war that were faked by government propaganda artists in a covert
campaign to "market" the military invasion of Iraq.

Gardiner has credentials. He has taught at the National War College, the Air
War College and the Naval Warfare College and was a visiting scholar at the
Swedish Defense College.

According to Gardiner, "It was not bad intelligence" that lead to the
quagmire in Iraq, "It was an orchestrated effort [that] began before the
war" that was designed to mislead the public and the world. Gardiner's
research lead him to conclude that the US and Britain had conspired at the
highest levels to plant "stories of strategic influence" that were known to
be false.


"Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies to
come to the right decisions," Gardiner explains. Consequently, "Truth became
a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage."
For the first time in US history, "we allowed strategic psychological
operations to become part of public affairs... [W]hat has happened is that
information warfare, strategic influence, [and] strategic psychological
operations pushed their way into the important process of informing the
peoples of our two democracies."


Gardiner's dogged research identified a long list of stories that passed
through Rumsfeld's propaganda mill. According to Gardiner, "there were over
50 stories manufactured or at least engineered that distorted the picture of
Gulf II for the American and British people." Those stories include:

The link between terrorism, Iraq and 9/11
Iraqi agents meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta
Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons.
Iraq's purchase of nuclear materials from Niger.
Saddam Hussein's development of nuclear weapons.
Aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons
The existence of Iraqi drones, WMD cluster bombs and Scud missiles.
Iraq's threat to target the US with cyber warfare attacks.
The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
The surrender of a 5,000-man Iraqi brigade.
Iraq executing Coalition POWs.
Iraqi soldiers dressing in US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities.
The exact location of WMD facilities
WMDs moved to Syria.

Every one of these stories received extensive publicity and helped form
indelible public impressions of the "enemy" and the progress of the
invasion. Every one of these stories was false.

"I know what I am suggesting is serious. I did not come to these conclusions
lightly," Gardiner admits. "I'm not going to address why they did it. That's
something I don't understand even after all the research." But the fact
remained that "very bright and even well-intentioned officials found how to
control the process of governance in ways never before possible."

The "Rescue" of Jessica Lynch
The Pentagon's control over the news surrounding the capture and rescue of
Pfc. Jessica Lynch receives a good deal of attention in Gardiner's report.
"From the very beginning it was called an 'ambush'," Gardiner noted. But, he
pointed out, "If you drive a convoy into enemy lines, turn around and drive
back, it's not an ambush. Military officers who are very careful about how
they talk about operations would normally not be sloppy about describing
this kind of event," Gardiner complained. "This un-military kind of talk is
one of the reasons I began doing this research."

One of the things that struck Gardiner as revealing was the fact that, as
Newsweek reported: "as soon as Lynch was in the air, [the Joint Operations
Center] phoned Jim Wilkinson, the top civilian communications aide to
CENTCOM Gen. Tommy Franks."

It struck Gardiner as inexplicable that the first call after Lynch's rescue
would go to the Director of Strategic Communications, the White House's top
representative on the ground.

On the morning of April 3, the Pentagon began leaking information on Lynch's
rescue that sought to establish Lynch as "America's new Rambo." The
Washington Post repeated the story it received from the Pentagon: that Lynch "sustained multiple gunshot wounds" and fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldier... firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition."
Lynch's family confused the issue by telling the press that their daughter
had not sustained any bullet wounds. Lynch's parents subsequently refused to talk to the press, explaining that they had been "told not to talk about
it." (Weeks later, the truth emerged. Lynch was neither stabbed nor shot.
She was apparently injured while falling from her vehicle.)

Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers let the story stand during an April 3 press
conference although both had been fully briefed on Lynch's true condition.
"Again, we see the pattern," Gardiner observed. "When the story on the
street supports the message, it will be left there by a non-answer. The
message is more important than the truth. Even Central Command kept the
story alive by not giving out details."

Gardiner saw another break with procedure. The information on the rescue
that was released to the Post "would have been very highly classified" and
should have been closely guarded. Instead, it was used as a tool to market
the war. "This was a major pattern from the beginning of the marketing
campaign throughout the war," Gardiner wrote. "It was okay to release
classified information if it supported the message."

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Friday, October 17th, 2003
Democracy Now! Exclusive: Retired Air Force Col. On How Bush Admin. Used Psy-Ops, Propaganda and Information Warfare In Iraq

Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream
Help Printer-friendly version Email to a friend Purchase Video/CD

A new report by retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner charges the U.S. and Britain relied on information warfare and psychological operations to inform the public in the lead-up and during the invasion of Iraq. He outlines over 50 stories that appeared in the U.S. media that were either purposely false or misleading.
A new report by a retired Air Force Colonel who teachers at the National War College charges the U.S. and Britain relied on information warfare and psychological operations to inform the public in the lead-up and during the invasion of Iraq.


While the fictional aspects of the Jessica Lynch story have been widely reported, the new report by Col. Sam Gardiner suggests the Lynch story was one of only 50 stories that appeared in the U.S. media that was either purposely false or misleading.

Gardiner poses the question: “What was true and who was affected by the non-truth?
He concludes, "Never before have so many stories been created to sell a war. And they probably didn't need it."

Four years ago on May 1, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln wearing a flight suit and delivered a speech in front of a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner. He was hailed by media stars as a "breathtaking" example of presidential leadership in toppling Saddam Hussein. Despite profound questions over the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction and the increasing violence in Baghdad, many in the press confirmed the White House's claim that the war was won. MSNBC's Chris Matthews declared, "We're all neo-cons now;" NPR's Bob Edwards said, "The war in Iraq is essentially over;" and Fortune magazine's Jeff Birnbaum said, "It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the broadest context."


How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? "What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored," says Moyers. "How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?"

On Wednesday, April 25 at 9 p.m. on PBS, a new PBS series BILL MOYERS JOURNAL premieres at a special time with "Buying the War," a 90-minute documentary that explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Two days later on April 27, BILL MOYERS JOURNAL airs in its regular timeslot on Fridays at 9 p.m. with interviews and news analysis on a wide range of subjects, including politics, arts and culture, the media, the economy, and issues facing democracy. "Buying the War" includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of MEET THE PRESS; Bob Simon of 60 MINUTES; Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN; and John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers, which was acquired by The McClatchy Company in 2006.

In "Buying the War" Bill Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes document the reporting of Walcott, Landay and Strobel, the Knight Ridder team that burrowed deep into the intelligence agencies to try and determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration's case for war. "Many of the things that were said about Iraq didn't make sense," says Walcott. "And that really prompts you to ask, 'Wait a minute. Is this true? Does everyone agree that this is true? Does anyone think this is not true?'"

In the run-up to war, skepticism was a rarity among journalists inside the Beltway. Journalist Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East, questioned the reporting he was seeing and reading. "I mean we knew things or suspected things that perhaps the Washington press corps could not suspect. For example, the absurdity of putting up a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda," he tells Moyers. "Saddam…was a total control freak. To introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn't believe it for an instant." The program analyzes the stream of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors to the mainstream print and broadcast press, which was then seized upon and amplified by an army of pundits. While almost all the claims would eventually prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation about WMDs went virtually unchallenged by the media. THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on Iraq's "worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb," but according to Landay, claims by the administration about the possibility of nuclear weapons were highly questionable. Yet, his story citing the "lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons" got little play. In fact, throughout the media landscape, stories challenging the official view were often pushed aside while the administration's claims were given prominence. "From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in THE WASHINGTON POST making the administration's case for war," says Howard Kurtz, the POST's media critic. "But there was only a handful of stories that ran on the front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite case, raised questions."
"Buying the War" examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy and asks, four years after the invasion, what's changed? "More and more the media become, I think, common carriers of administration statements and critics of the administration," says THE WASHINGTON POST's Walter Pincus. "We've sort of given up being independent on our own."