Psych-ops

This blog post is in honor of "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED". It will be five years tomorrow that the idiot in chief stood on a flight deck and proclaimed the war was over in Iraq and that we had won.

And today, US forces are still killing children in Iraq. Five years later, we likely have a million dead, tens of millions lives ruined, and the Green Zone getting shelled nearly every day. We have seen torture, rape, murder, kidnapping all installed as standard US policy. These things were done before the current idiot was selected/re-elected to office, but now we do it out in the open without a hint of shame.

I feel shame. I wonder why I am a part of this country anymore. I don't belong with these murderers, torturers, abusers, rapists and genocide enablers.

Another thing our military and government does is propaganda and psych-ops. I remember several years ago hearing about the Pentagon policy to "villianize Zarqawi - leverage xenophobic response". Yes, they thought they were clever to make Iraqis afraid, the sick bastards. They also thought it was clever to make Zarqawi worse than he was - which makes me wonder if Zarqawi was on the CIA payroll and for how long.

Missing Links blog had this post today on info ops in Sadr City (where they are routinely killing toddlers - and I doubt there is any regret at all about that):

Colonel Stover said it was with the greatest regret and the highest level of professionalism that his gallant men yesterday fired a "200-pound guided rocket that [American] officials said killed 28 militiamen." After all, he said, "It was these militants who initiated the engagement by attacking US soldiers." Iraqi officials said those killed weren't all militiamen, and included nine civilians including women and children, but Stover was not at a loss for words there either: He said, "The enemy shows little regard for the lives of innocent civilians, as they fire their weapons from within houses, alleyways and rooftops upon our soldiers." Just so you know: The American forces show the highest level of professionalism, but when they do fire on houses, alleyways or rooftops, it is because people in those houses and alleyways, and on those roofs, were the aggressors, not the American troops.

Residents said there were also two helicopter airstrikes which heavily damaged four houses, and AFP said it has photos showing several bodies buried under the debris of collapsed houses. Stover denied that. He said the sandstorm made it impossible to conduct airstrikes. Possibly the truth is that sandstorms made it impossible to conduct airstrikes with the usual level of precision-guided professionalism.

The best part of Stover's mental orientation is that he thinks the US forces are actually more loyal to Sadr than the militants who are firing on them. As AFP explains: "The US military says those fighting its troops are not loyal to Sadr, who has frozen the activities of his Mahdi Army militia since last August." The implication being that the US forces in Sadr City are not only merely defending their legitimate positions when fired upon by the aggressors, but also are helping Sadr enforce the freeze!

In fact, when you look at the whole information-picture you will see that the US forces in a sense do not know that they are a reviled army of occupation. They think they are a highly professional peace-keeping force. Which is perhaps not that unusual: Probably any army of occupation, no matter how brutal, is made to believe something like that, though maybe not to this level of hypocrisy.

The truly amazing thing, however, is that the American people, and by and large the American left, seem to believe the same thing. US forces are defending legitimate positions in Sadr City; anyone firing on US forces is defying Sadr; the US only fires when attacked; the aims are either "quelling violence" or "stopping rocket attacks" (or both), and have nothing to do with crushing a major anti-occupation movement. And so on. In other words: This is a peace-keeping operation.

…………Meanwhile the damage in Sadr City is already being done, and it will get worse, if we can't find people with the courage to stand up and say this is a policy that is as damaging to America morally as it is brutal to its direct victims, and the Democrats shouldn't be silently lining up behind it.

And, about ten days ago there was a piece in the NYT about how the retired Generals were on all the US TV "news" stations doing propaganda. This was totally ignored by the same TV "news" of course - but Glenn Greenwald has been working on it, and doing a fine job.

And here is a cartoon on the propaganda that the US Military has fostered on the US population.

This reminds me of something Bill Moyers said years ago - if they (the US authorities) will brag openly about wanting to kill leaders of foreign countries, then what are the capable of doing that they will not brag about openly?

I think I know.