US Government Planting Stories in Iraq Media

Is anybody surprised by this? I mean, we did invade their country and take it over after all…

[...] the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.

The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military’s term for a list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show. The contractor’s job is to translate the articles into Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies without revealing the Pentagon’s role.

Woowee! I’m sure glad they don’t do this with news media here in the United States!


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This entry was written by happy thanksgiving, y'all!, posted on December 1, 2005 at 10:30 am.

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6 Comments

  1. Elizabeth Anne Ensley
    Posted December 1, 2005 at 1:38 pm | Permalink

    Actually, it is done in the U.S.A., too. It’s just not ‘outed’ as frequently.

  2. Tim Boucher
    Posted December 1, 2005 at 1:43 pm | Permalink

    Oh yeah, I know. That statement was what you call Socratic Irony. Even in that article itself they mention:

    The Government Accountability Office found this year that the Bush administration had violated the law by producing pseudo news reports that were later used on American television stations with no indication that they had been prepared by the government. But no law prohibits the use of such covert propaganda abroad.

    Or check out Operation Mockingbird for a longer more detailed history of this practice:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

  3. Stephen
    Posted December 1, 2005 at 3:30 pm | Permalink

    Yeah i get your ironic sarcasm of the situation! LOL! Friggin Leo Strauss and the friggin Neo-Cons!
    Friggin Hypocritical Idiots! We’re living in a world of lies. Im sick of this!

  4. Allison
    Posted December 1, 2005 at 5:29 pm | Permalink

    I got the sarcasm as well. And I concur on the LOL! In fact, master of irony that I convince myself I am, I don’t think I could have evoked more with fewer words, via Socratic Irony, if I’d tried.

    You need to stop impressing me so much so I can stop feeling like such a kiss-ass. Say something stupid! Stupid.

    I feel better already. :)

  5. Charlie's Horse
    Posted December 2, 2005 at 12:06 am | Permalink

    Ahh, sarcasm in the tone of Bill Hicks. Much like Jesus, there is a Bill Hicks consciousness that lives inside of all of us, waiting to be coughed out in a stream of smoke and cusses. Crazy bastard lives awfully close to my skin sometimes.

  6. Haeresis
    Posted December 2, 2005 at 6:30 pm | Permalink

    Well,they did it here first, why would this be a surprise?

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