The Propaganda of Victory


Why are Americans so gullible? Was the media used by the Pentagon? What happens now? Lisa English of Ruminate This examines the idea of easy victory planted in the public's mind, and the possibility that we aren't necessarily the victors we think we are.

War isn't fair, but if you're a chickenhawk like George Bush and you're surrounded by a cabal of warmongering advisers who similarly have never stepped foot on the battlefield, it's easy to believe your own boardgame spin.

Well, thanks to a hyper-commercialized media, Americans have been snookered into buying this spin, too. Instead of asking hard questions and analyzing the Bush answers, the US media has been obsessed with technological toys and military might. The end result is that we've been fed a steady diet of hard sell, straight from the marketing departments of Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, et al. We know more about missiles and other hardware of war than we do reasons for prosecuting this war in the first place. Imagine that!

But not everyone has been hoodwinked... read it all!

Bush was a little testy yesterday when asked about the timeline. It was ugly, defensive and childish. I'm not surprised, considering he is naturally arrogant. I suppose he was also hoodwinked. Oh,,wait..this was his job to make informed decisions?
"Bush administration officials and their hawkish supporters now say they never promised an easy war -- but the record shows otherwise."

Richard Perle, recently resigned chairman of the Defense Policy Board, in a PBS interview July 11, 2002:

"Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991."

"But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder. "

Vice President Dick Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press" March 16:

"The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."

"My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN March 23:

"The course of this war is clear. The outcome is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. It's over. It will not be there in a relatively reasonably predictable period of time."

"And the people in Iraq need to know that: that it will not be long before they will be liberated."

Odd how I heard Bush repeat that very last sentence yesterday, only he added, "and the Iraqi people will be liberated." He could have as well added, "whether they want to be or not".

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