Very well. Perhaps I should have called her master propagandist instead of sensationalist. She uses intrigue and innuendos to convince people there are facts supporting her position, where in fact there are no facts and at most there are just equally divided suspicions. Let's go over the exchange:
Nadine >>> It is not exactly a state secret that al Sadr is funded from Iran, and that al Qaeda have had free entry and exit from Iran.
Nadine >> Hawk, what do you hear on the extent of Iranian support for al Sadr? Are they sending troops?
Nadine >>The US papers simply refuse to touch the issue.
Winn >> Are they sending troops, Nadine? ... Maybe the US papers aren't touching the issue because there's no...
Nadine > Even the BBC World Service has now reported that the Americans are accusing Iran of supplying al Sadr, and the Iraqi government is pressing hard with the Americans to take control of Najaf and send a message to Iran - get Iran out of Iraq!
Nadine > Do you now count the BBC among the rightwing Bush supporters?
Her first sentence implies very strongly that Iran is waging a proxy war against US by supplying Sadr with weapons, money, and men (in the form of AQ fighters). All these implications are more likely to be wrong than right, but she just presents a neatly packed image free of all doubts to convince us for the contrary.
In fact there are many reasons to believe Iran would be reluctant to support Sadr. Firstly, Iran officially supports Sistani (you can go to sites closely affiliated with Iran and will see photos of Sistani and Khamanei being side by side but no mentions of Sadr). Sistani and Sadr never got along. So this by itself is one point against her implications. Next point is that Sadr has no liking of Iranians and his ideology goes counter to the main stream clerics which Iran supports. So this is two more points against this position.
So she puts a most likely false statement (Iran supports Sadr) combined with true (but spun) statement (AQ enter Iraq through Iran) to give the more false statement credibility. The problem with the second statement is that Iran's boarders are very porous. You really can't control them. So yes, AQ does get to Iraq via Iran. But Nadine's spin "free entry and exit" implies that Iran supports their entry, which again is most likely wrong. You may have in fact noticed this buried in the news of an American's arrest in Iran:
American Reportedly Detained in Iran
Fri Aug 13, 9:45 AM ET
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran - Security forces have detained an American man for illegally entering Iran from Pakistan, state television reported Friday.
An Iranian police officer confirmed to The Associated Press the Tuesday arrest of the unidentified American, saying his motives for crossing the border had not been determined.
The American was being interrogated, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Iran has tightened security on its eastern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites) to prevent infiltration by supporters of the al-Qaida terror group and the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
State television said the man was Jewish but did not identify him further. It said he was arrested in Sistan-Baluchestan, a southeastern province that borders Pakistan.
...
Message 20410103
Seems like a very different picture than Nadine paints, no?
But perhaps her most masterful spin is in the last paragraph. What the bit boils down to is this: Nadine says (no proof) than BBC says, that (some unnamed) Americans in Iraq say, that Iran supports Sadr (to the extent that Iraqi government now has to ask US for help, which again is a spin). By adding "Do you now count the BBC among the rightwing Bush supporters", she shows her art of spin. I really have to give her credit for propaganda skills here. If she has not had formal training for it, she has missed her true calling. By using this last sentence, she turns a series of undocumented hearsays into a credible news from an independent (or even anti-Bush) news source and gives credibility to it.
Propaganda is the art of weaving a story of truths, half-truths, and outright lies into a convincing story that supports your side. It is an art form based on leading you to the conclusions the propagandist wants you to "deduce" rather than clear statements and objective reporting. The key to propaganda is that you'd never see the spin, or if you do, your alternative choice will be about as good. Nadine is great at it. I appreciate her artistry, but the smell of the content makes me nauseous.
ST |
