Propaganda

Americans Oppose Fake News in Iraq

"Almost three-quarters of Americans think it was wrong for the Pentagon to pay Iraqi newspapers to publish news about U.S. efforts in Iraq, a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows. USA TODAY reported earlier this month that the Pentagon plans to expand beyond Iraq an anti-terrorism public relations campaign that has included secret payments to Iraqi journalists and publications who printed stories favorable to the USA. ...

Cutouts Speak Out

"U.S. military officials in Iraq were fully aware that a Pentagon contractor regularly paid Iraqi newspapers to publish positive stories about the war, and made it clear that none of the stories should be traced to the United States, according to several current and former employees of Lincoln Group," report Mark Mazzetti and Kevin Sack.

Afghanistan: The Other Information War

Seven months after the "Rendon Group was hired to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai with media relations in early 2004," both Karzai and then-U.S.

The Information War

"The media center in Fayetteville, N.C., would be the envy of any global communications company," writes Jeff Gerth. "In state of the art studios, producers prepare the daily mix of music and news for the group's radio stations or spots for friendly television outlets. Writers putting out newspapers and magazines in Baghdad and Kabul converse via teleconferences. Mobile trailers with high-tech gear are parked outside, ready for the next crisis. ... The center is not part of a news organization, but a military operation, and those writers and producers are soldiers.

Shocked (or Not?) at PR and PsyOps in Iraq

After the Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon, through the Lincoln Group, was planting "favorable stories about the war and the rebuilding effort" in Iraqi newspapers, military spokespeople "offered a mixed message" about the program.

Lincoln Group Bombards Iraq with Fake News

Fake news is being used in the Iraq propaganda war, reports the Los Angeles Times. "[T]he U.S.

Camera/Iraq

The Cinema and Media Studies Department at Carleton College in Minnesota has created a website, CameraIraq.com, which gathers news and commentary about public and personal photographic image practices associated with the "war of images in the Middle East." Items in their collection include photos of the dead bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons, the beheading of Nick Berg, the Bush "Mission Accomplished" photo op, and a variety of real and faked images depicting human rights abuses, atrocities and other staples of wartime propaganda.

Rewriting History

“It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how (the Iraq) war began,” Bush scolded his critics in his Veterans Day speech on November 11. But as Robert Parry observes, Bush is the one doing the rewriting. "Bush’s argument is that he didn’t lie the nation into war; he and his top aides were just misled by the same faulty intelligence that Congress saw," he writes.

Art and Propaganda

"The internet has added a whole new dimension and level of artistic sophistication to anti-war and anti-imperialist art and propaganda during the Iraq war and surrounding events," writes Kari Lydersen.

The Man Who Sold the War

While the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence drags its feet on discovering how the White House sold the Iraq war, journalist James Bamford has written a major expose on one of the key players: John Rendon.

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