Posted on 03/30/2007 10:49:01 AM PDT by LS
LOL. Great image.
Great point. The public can be roused to support a mission (as after 9/11) or to oppose. But they won't just drift down the middle. That's why a domestic propaganda effort (yes, I will call it that, proudly) is an absolute necessity.
Interesting observation. The mud puddle may be very wide, but how deep is it. It could dry up given a bright sun in no time.
outstanding.
A separate chapter in your next book
Bingo - But when in the hell are the WH/RNC going to understand this? It is past time!
We need a counter PR campaign with a sense of urgency behind it. That is creative, systematic and relentless over the course of 6 months or so....
And I simply don't see the urgency out of the WH or RNC. How in the hell can we be 6 years into this WOT...and not one WOT supporting 527 exists (and is up and running an effective campaign).
The RNC needs to employ people such as Cannoneer No. 4 who absolutely "get it".
Yet now it has become a race between the terrorists, who have an incentive to inflict as much damage as possible to make victory appear impossible,
Violence tears across Iraq
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/31/iraq.main/
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Car bombs and gunfire killed more than two dozen civilians and wounded more than 60 in attacks throughout Iraq on Saturday, officials said.
Five civilians were killed and 22 wounded in a car-bomb explosion near Sadrayn Hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood at 10 a.m., a Baghdad police official said.
South of Baghdad in Hilla, four people were killed and 20 were wounded when a car bomb exploded near people lining up at a gas station, Babil police said.
A car bomb killed two day laborers and wounded 11 others who were gathered north of the capital in the Salaheddin province city of Tuz Khurmatu on Saturday morning, a Tikrit police official said.
(snip)
_______________________________________________
Death toll rises to 152 in northern Iraq truck bombing attacks: official
http://english.people.com.cn/200704/01/eng20070401_362817.html
The total death toll rose to 152 and up to 347 others wounded when double truck bomb attacks at a market in a Shiite district in the town of Tal Afar on Tuesday, an official told reporters on Saturday.
The death toll rose to 152 and up to 347 people wounded, Brigadier Abdul Kareem Khalaf, the spokesman of the Interior Ministry said.
Khalaf also said that 100 homes were blown up by the blasts which were caused by 2 tonnes of explosives that left a 23-metre- ditch in the ground.
Earlier, Duraid Kashmula, Nineveh's governor put the toll at 140 people were killed and some 200 others wounded in the twin blasts.
As a reprisal for Tuesday's truck bombing, unknown gunmen stormed a Sunni district in the Iraqi town of Tal Afar overnight and killed up to 70 people.
(snip)
______________________________________
It goes without saying we are doomed DOOMED I say!
Cannoneer, looks like you would be hired. Well????? : )
Does Ari's (Emanuel) Mom Have A Secret Recipe? (Rahm Emanuel and Moore's F 9/11)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1806555/posts?page=8#8
One of the reasons we lost Vietnam was that LBJ NEVER undertook a proper domestic propaganda campaign. At least Bush has 1) called this a war and 2) said it would be long, and 3) called up the reserves and national guard. LBJ did none of those things. But LBJ also never, ever demonized the enemy. This is essential in warfare, especially for a western country. We don't naturally hate. We aren't tribal. So mobilizing Americans to gird themselves for long, bloody conflicts requires explaining the war to them in the most basic, even simplistic terms. This offends liberals, but the fact is, most people don't have time, and some do not have the sophistication, to understand complex foreign policy objectives. But if you put it simply: these people want to kill you, they are evil, and your boy won't come home until we eliminate the threat, then Americans get it.
The worst "mistake" of the war is the one liberals would NEVER acknowlege: that President Bush and the Republicans did NOT politicize the war enough, nor did they sufficiently propagandize the war.
I think that a lack of leadership by the President is at the root of almost all of the administration's problems. Sad.
Today, we might have a little more insignt as to why Bush proceeded the way he did.
See my analysis of Matt Dowd.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1810151/posts
Your above article (Attorneys and Ayatollahs) along with your comment above are simply dead nuts correct. I wish a few like yourself (and Cannoneer No. 4 ) could find a way into the PR circles within the WH and RNC.
It angers the hell out of me that they clearly don't have people who understand these PR/Informational realities....and yet seem to have no urgency to change and put people in charge who do.
The WH/RNC (along with them not having fielded WOT supporting 527s) have done a terrible disservice to every warrior down range fighting in this WOT.
Micheal should sue them! :-)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/dowd.html
I hear a lot about Bush should do . . ., or the RNC should . . .
What I'm not hearing is much about what WE, the people who want the bad guys defeated and the good guys victorious, should be doing. Our leadership is what it is. We can improve it to some extent by improving our followership. We can also lower our expectations and demand less from our leaders and begin to require more from ourselves.
Sitting around thinking of things the President or the military or the RNC ought to be doing is not as useful as thinking about what WE ought to be doing. And one of the things everybody reading this post on this forum could be doing is donating their time, their electricity, their fingers and their talent to lend a hand in a grass-roots, non-governmental, distributed Information Operations counter propaganda campaign.
These range from simple confusion to disrupting ongoing operations. Common effects of hostile propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation, include
Prompting neutral parties to resist or not support military operations.
Increasing adversary will to resist [emboldening them] by fanning hatreds, biases, and predispositions.
Leading multinational partners [Spain, Germany, Italy] to question their roles in a coalition.
Inciting riots. [17 people died in Jalalabad rioting over a Koran that never got flushed down the toilet. Newsweek killed those people.]
Causing refugees to block lines of communication.
Fostering distrust of US or US-led forces causing host nations [Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan] or other non-belligerant parties to not cooperate with friendly forces
Causing essential communicators [Katie Couric, Brian Williams, et. al] to resist or deny cooperation
Causing diversion of military assets to address problems that, while seemingly insignificant, require significant resources [making mountains out of mole hills and raising a big stink that generals have to stop fighting the war to go deal with]
Leading friendly governments to question their own policies and support for military operations [whittling down the Coalition of the Willing]
(all of this on top of working during the Blackwell campaign and walking five different precincts.)
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