Breathless
04-30-2006, 09:30 PM
Is the Zarqawi video a hoax?
People still snicker whenever anyone suggests that the American intelligence community has, in the past, manipulated the American press. Yet nobody laughed at Donald Rumsfeld (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/18/rumsfeld-limbaugh/) when he claimed that
"The terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States."
Rumsfeld did not point to a single story in the U.S. media influenced by the putative Zarqawi "media committee." How could he? The Defense Secretary's assertion is inane on its face. A couple of criminals despised by all Americans could never "spin" CBS or the New York Times.
Is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi himself a manipulation? As we discussed in a recent post, the Washington Post revealed that the "threat" posed by this alleged Al Qaeda leader was largely the creation of a military PSYOPS unit (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002921913_zarqawi10.html). The propaganda campaign created by this unit targeted both the foreign press and the U.S. "home audience." Our troops were another target: When they unleashed "Whiskey Pete" on civilians in Fallujah, they did so in the belief that they were fighting Zarqawi.
On the same day the Post story appeared, Bush -- in a speech -- cited as genuine a Zarqawi letter now known to be fake (http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/zarqawi-gate-more-important-than-you.html).
Journalist Robert Fisk feels that Zarqawi may have died years ago. The Jordanian has not been seen in years; he did not communicate with his family when his mother died; he has made no attempt to help his wife.
Fisk is hardly the only skeptic to make such a claim -- see, for example, this page of links (http://planetquo.net/References/AlZarqawiHarryHoudiniMeetsSuperman.htm). (Note: A number of the links go to pages I consider less than credible.)
Full Article (http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/is-zarqawi-video-hoax.html)
People still snicker whenever anyone suggests that the American intelligence community has, in the past, manipulated the American press. Yet nobody laughed at Donald Rumsfeld (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/18/rumsfeld-limbaugh/) when he claimed that
"The terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States."
Rumsfeld did not point to a single story in the U.S. media influenced by the putative Zarqawi "media committee." How could he? The Defense Secretary's assertion is inane on its face. A couple of criminals despised by all Americans could never "spin" CBS or the New York Times.
Is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi himself a manipulation? As we discussed in a recent post, the Washington Post revealed that the "threat" posed by this alleged Al Qaeda leader was largely the creation of a military PSYOPS unit (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002921913_zarqawi10.html). The propaganda campaign created by this unit targeted both the foreign press and the U.S. "home audience." Our troops were another target: When they unleashed "Whiskey Pete" on civilians in Fallujah, they did so in the belief that they were fighting Zarqawi.
On the same day the Post story appeared, Bush -- in a speech -- cited as genuine a Zarqawi letter now known to be fake (http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/zarqawi-gate-more-important-than-you.html).
Journalist Robert Fisk feels that Zarqawi may have died years ago. The Jordanian has not been seen in years; he did not communicate with his family when his mother died; he has made no attempt to help his wife.
Fisk is hardly the only skeptic to make such a claim -- see, for example, this page of links (http://planetquo.net/References/AlZarqawiHarryHoudiniMeetsSuperman.htm). (Note: A number of the links go to pages I consider less than credible.)
Full Article (http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/is-zarqawi-video-hoax.html)