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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Calladine who wrote (169)	2/1/2004 12:06:32 PM
From: PartyTime	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

“No more bed-time stories ... these guys are here to wake you up.” --Greg Palast “A major contribution for those who want to take control of their own future, not be passive subjects of manipulation and control.” --Noam Chomsky It was a day for the history books. On April 9th, 2003, millions of Americans sat glued to their television sets as U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens joined together to topple the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. Like the fall of the Berlin wall, the fall of Saddam’s statue appeared to be one of those iconic moments that proved - spontaneously and undeniably - that democracy would always triumph over totalitarianism, that freedom was the great equalizer. “If you don’t have goose bumps now,” said Fox News anchor David Asman as the extraordinary footage rolled, “you will never have them in your life.” “Jubilant Iraqis Swarm the Streets of Capital,” read the New York Times headline. Or did they? In their eye-opening new exposé, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq, Rampton and Stauber take no prisoners as they reveal - headline by headline, news show by news show, press conference by press conference - the deliberate, aggressive, and highly successful public relations campaign that sold the Iraqi war to the American public. April 9th seemed to confirm what Washington and pro-war pundits had been saying for months: that the Iraqi people would eventually come to see America as their liberator, not their enemy. Yet the American media chose to focus on headlines such as “Iraqis Celebrate in Baghdad” (Washington Post) rather than on a Reuters long-shot photo of Firdos Square showing it to be nearly empty, or the Muslim cleric who was assassinated by an angry crowd in Najaf for being too friendly to the Americans, or the 20,000 Iraqis in Nasiriyah rallying to oppose the U.S. military presence. We’ve always known what good PR and advertising could do for a new line of sneakers, cosmetics, or weight-loss products. In Weapons of Mass Deception, Rampton and Stauber show us a brave new shocking world where savvy marketers, “information warriors,” and “perception managers” can sell an entire war to consumers. Indeed, Washington successfully brought together the world’s top ad agencies and media empires to create “Operation: Iraqi Freedom” - a product no decent, patriotic citizen could possibly object to. With meticulous research and documentation, Rampton and Stauber deconstruct this and other “true lies” behind the war: * Top Bush officials advocated the invasion of Iraq even before he took office, but waited until September 2002 to inform the public, through what the White House termed a “product launch.” * White House officials used repetition and misinformation - the “big lie” tactic - to create the false impression that Iraq was behind the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, especially in the case of the alleged meeting in Prague five months earlier between 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officials. * The “big lie” tactic was also employed in the first Iraq war when a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah told the horrific - but fabricated - story of Iraqi soldiers wrenching hundreds of premature Kuwaiti babies from their incubators and leaving them to die. Her testimony was printed in a press kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a PR front group created by Hill and Knowlton, then the world’s largest PR firm. * In order to achieve “third party authenticity” in the Muslim world, a group called the Council of American Muslims for Understanding launched its own web site, called OpenDialogue.com. However, its chairman admitted that the idea began with the State Department, and that the group was funded by the U.S. government. * Forged documents were used to “prove” that Iraq possessed huge stockpiles of banned weapons. * A secretive PR firm working for the Pentagon helped create the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which became one of the driving forces behind the decision to go to war. Weapons of Mass Deception is the first book to expose the aggressive public relations campaign used to sell the American public on the war with Iraq. It is a must-read for prwatch.org

To: James Calladine who wrote (169)	2/1/2004 2:40:18 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 173976

The CHURCH OF THE WHITE HOUSE is contrary to OUR CONSTITUTION Op-ed Columnist: Budgets of Mass Destruction February 1, 2004 By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN It should be clear to all by now that what we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues. This group believes that what matters in politics and economics are conviction and will - not facts, social science or history. Personally, I don't believe the Bush team will pay a long-term political price for its faith-based intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Too many Americans, including me, believe in their guts that removing Saddam was the right thing to do, even if the W.M.D. intel was wrong. The Bush team's real vulnerability is its B.M.D. - Budgets of Mass Destruction, which have recklessly imperiled the nation's future, with crazy tax-cutting and out-of-control spending. The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade - almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to make us all insecure - and people also feel that in their guts. As Peter Peterson, the former Nixon commerce secretary and a longtime courageous advocate of fiscal responsibility, puts it in "Running on Empty," his forthcoming book: "In the 1980 election, Ronald Reagan galvanized the American electorate with that famous riff: `I want to ask every American: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?' Perhaps some future-oriented presidential candidate should rephrase this line as follows: `I want to ask every American, young people especially: Is your future better off now than it was four years ago - now that you are saddled with these large new liabilities and the higher taxes that must eventually accompany them?' " While in his book Mr. Peterson equally indicts Democrats and Republicans as co-conspirators in the fiscal follies of our times, the Democrats should still follow his lead and make this their campaign mantra: "Is your future better off now than it was four years ago?" That's what's on people's minds. It should be coupled with the bumper sticker: "Read My Lips: No New Services. Bush Gave All the Money Away." And it should be backed up with a responsible Democratic alternative on both taxes and spending. That is the only way to expose what the shameful coalition of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting tax revenues you'll shrink the government - when all you do is balloon the deficit - is doing to our future. And please don't tell me the tax cuts are working. Of course they're working! If you put this much stimulus into our economy - three tax cuts, loose monetary policy and out-of-control spending - it will produce a boom. Eat 10 chocolate bars at once and you'll also get a rush. But at what long-term cost? "Quite simply," argues Mr. Peterson, "those bell-bottomed young boomers of the 1960's have fully matured. The oldest of them, born in 1946, are only six years away from the median age of retirement on Social Security (63). As a result, our large pension and health care benefit programs will soon experience rapidly accelerating benefit outlays. . . . Thus, at a time when the federal government should be building up surpluses to prepare for the aging of the baby boom generation, it is engaged in another reckless experiment with large and permanent tax cuts. America cannot grow its way out of the kinds of long-term deficits we now face. . . . The odds are growing that today's ballooning trade and fiscal deficits, the so-called twin deficits, will someday trigger an explosion that causes the economy to sink - not rise." The same Bush folks who assured us Saddam had W.M.D. now assure us these budgets of mass destruction don't matter. Sure. "During the Vietnam War," notes Mr. Peterson, "conservatives relentlessly pilloried Lyndon Johnson for his fiscal irresponsibility. But he only wanted guns and butter. Today, so-called conservatives are out-pandering L.B.J. They must have it all: guns, butter and tax cuts." This is so irresponsible and it will end in tears. Remember, says Mr. Peterson, long-term tax cuts without long-term spending cuts are not tax cuts. They are "tax deferrals" - with the burden to be borne by your future or your kid's future. If this isn't the election issue, I don't know what is. nytimes.com