Isn't this just dandy?

The US military is trying to propagandize Iraq! Without Murdock and those conservative CEOs of the major media companies (like we have here in the USA), I don't know how this could possibly work. But hey, we are throwing away lots of money on other things, so why not on media lies in Iraq. Here's a bit of the article:

The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.

The new contracts -- awarded last week to four companies -- will expand and consolidate what the U.S. military calls "information/psychological operations" in Iraq far into the future, even as violence appears to be abating and U.S. troops have begun drawing down.

Of course, troops levels in Iraq are still much higher than they were two years ago, so that last part is basically a lie, but then, maybe they are working on propagandizing the homeland too! Here's another clip from the report:

One official described how part of the program works: "There's a video piece produced by a contractor . . . showing a family being attacked by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The message is: You've got to stand up against the enemy." The professionally produced vignette, he said, "is offered for airing on various [television] stations in Iraq. . . . They don't know that the originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did, they would never run anything."

"If you asked most Iraqis," he said, "they would say, 'It came from the government, our own government.' "

Well, at least they are consistent - they use fear to try and reign in the Americans too..... except it is fear of the ISLAMOTERRORISTS that are presumably hiding under the bed, along with the imaginary WMDs. Now, some of us recall back when the Lincoln Group were accused of promoting propaganda in Iraq a few years back, but the Pentagon investigated itself and found that what they did was okay. Now the Lincoln Group has a new contract! Surprise!

Pretty soon, Americans are going to have some REAL SERIOUS problems to worry about, and they won't be coming from overseas - they will be coming from our own economy, the environment, and energy problems. That bailout for the bankers they pushed last week? It will never work, since they are trying to prop up a ponzi scheme. One hope - after we go broke, like really, really broke..... maybe we will stop invading and bombing other countries.
The rest of the article on the military propaganda agenda in Iraq is here.