Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promote Iraq war while home

[Ernesto]

"The message is clear,” says one reservist who is home for the holidays but has to return and asked not to be identified. “If you want to get out of this man’s Army with an honorable (discharge) and full benefits you better not tell the truth about what is happening in-country".

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7918.shtml

[Crazy Dave]

1. I'm so glad we live in a "Free Country"

:sarcasm:

[LARED]

2. Is this credible?

The program, coordinated through a Pentagon operation dubbed “Operation Homefront,” ordered military personnel to give interviews to their hometown newspapers, television stations and other media outlets and praise the American war effort in Iraq.

I don't know how they can ORDER someone to do this?

Operation Homefront is found here ; http://www.operationhomefront.net/index.html

I don't know what to make of this?

[Ian David]

3. Capitol Hill Blue isn't the most credible source. n/t

[LibDemAlways]

4. Last night I saw a few minutes of

pentagon propaganda on c-span, featuring a panel of soldiers who supposedly served in Iraq being asked questions by planted shill "ordinary Americans" like, "How do the Iraqi people feel about our presence there?" And "What was it like to have embedded reporters?" The predictable responses were along the lines of "The Iraqi people love us. The 'insurgents' are all from elsewhere." and "We didn't interfere in any way with the reporters' ability to do their job."

Lots of thinly veiled hostility toward the Iraqis, though. One jackass said the Iraqis weren't "sophisticated" enough to tell the truth in their own media, so we had to plant those favorable stories in their press.

I turned it off after a couple of minutes. It was all bullshit.

[louis-t]

6. You are right, I have already seen it.

Nearly every day, the local news affiliates run a story featuring a soldier who has returned or is on leave saying what great progress they're making in Iraq. Sickening.

[annabanana]

5. nonetheless..

I would Lo-o-ove to see some documentation on those talking points..

The story itself sounds plausible.

[MADem]

7. Well, this totally sucks, and what makes it worse is that the charity

OPERATION HOMEFRONT, that supports troops and families, will be tarred with Rummy's feces-smeared brush.

This sounds about par for the course, though. Wonder if they actually drill the poor bastards on RTQs? ("Responses to Queries")

[cliss]

8. See, here's the problem with this kind of propaganda.

It's self-defeating, and it will never work. It's been tried before, numerous times. And it always ends the same way.

The Pentagon is heavily invested in portraying a "rosy" image of Iraq. The media is complicit. They try their best. We're spending millions with the Lincoln Group which writes ridiculous "happy" stories in Iraqi newspapers.

We know the Pentagon is involved in distorting everything that comes out of that country. It's tough because the rest of the world is a little too far from their grasp, so they're always doing damage control.

All of this costs millions. It eats up an enormous amount of time for the planners and Generals. They spend a huge amount of energy trying to promote a bullshit war.

The end result is: complete and utter failure. If they had done the right thing to begin with, they would not have needed to waste all this time trying to create something that isn't there.