...who can you trust?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060221/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rumsfeld

Quote :

"U.S. Still Planting Stories in Iraq Media WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was mistaken when he said last week that the U.S. military had stopped the controversial practice of paying to plant stories in the Iraqi news media, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. Bryan Whitman, a senior spokesman, said Rumsfeld had been incorrect in saying during an TV interview Friday that the practice had been halted in the wake of negative publicity in the United States. Rumsfeld made a similar assertion during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that same day. Whitman noted that Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said he saw no reason to stop the practice. An official inquiry into the program by Navy Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk has been completed but its results have not been publicly released. In his speech, Rumsfeld raised the issue as an example of the U.S. military command in Baghdad seeking "nontraditional means" to get its message to the Iraqi people in the face of a disinformation campaign by the insurgents. "Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate — for example, the allegations of someone in the military hiring a contractor and the contractor allegedly paying someone to print a story — a true story — but paying to print a story," he said during his speech. "The resulting explosion of critical press stories then causes everything — all activity, all initiative — to stop, just frozen," he added. In an appearance Friday on PBS' "The Charlie Rose Show," Rumsfeld said he had not known about the practice of paying for news stories before it became a subject of critical publicity in the United States. "When we heard about it we said, `Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing,' and told the people down there," he said. Although "it wasn't anything terrible that happened," Pentagon officials ordered a halt to the practice and "they stopped doing it," he added, according to a transcript provided by the show."

So the generals aren't listening to the Secretary of Defense. Beautiful.

2/21/2006 3:38:16 PM

he didnt mean it litterally ok

2/21/2006 3:48:59 PM

I saw a documentary on the use of media by Al Qaeda on Discovery Times last night. They stated pretty bluntly that the US war machine needs to spend more time on propaganda, such as they did during the Cold War. As far behind as they are technologically, muslim terrorist organizations have the upper hand in this sort of thing.

But who knows, Rumsfeld might have put that documentary on tv.

2/21/2006 3:49:22 PM

i don't think you can use the cold war playbook in a hot war

i could be wrong though

2/21/2006 4:05:20 PM

propoganda helped with wwII

2/21/2006 4:06:24 PM

Meh. Just in terms of stepping up propaganda in other parts of the Muslim world.

2/21/2006 4:07:16 PM

well, they are still using Radio Free Europe Iraq/Afganistan/Iran, that counts for something.

2/21/2006 4:35:33 PM

Quote :

"propoganda helped with wwII"

we need more domestic propaganda

2/21/2006 4:37:59 PM

Dan Rather and CBS News

2/26/2006 10:31:48 AM

well that terrarist retired, so you won't have to worry about him

2/26/2006 11:15:48 AM

More propaganda all around would certainly make it easier for us to maintain our self image.

Maybe they just don't want to use it because it might make other countries (our allies, you might say) dislike us instead of like us (which would be bad). Oh, that's probably only true unless we spend more on propaganda for us in their countries as well.

2/26/2006 11:35:34 AM

i meant more propaganda that gets people involved in the war effort

such as the domestic propaganda from world war 2

you know, a war that the general public wasn't in favor of our possible intervention -- until we were attacked

2/26/2006 12:14:01 PM

Is Larry the Cable Guy not doing it for ya?

2/26/2006 12:17:24 PM

Quote :

"kdawg(c): Dan Rather and CBS News"

News Anchor != Secretary of Defense

In any case, I don't see how you'd justify the lies of the Secretary of Defense by saying that a well-known journalist lied, too. That's like saying that since Iraqi insurgents murder civilians, it's morally acceptable for US troops to murder them, too.

2/26/2006 12:25:46 PM

I think plenty of people are absolutely okay with the deaths of Iraqi civillians, at the hands of the US or others.

2/26/2006 12:33:03 PM