Authored by: futurenow on Monday, July 28 2003

I'm sure that the new book, Weapons of Mass Deception, will be a big hit in Germany and Europe even if it doesn't sell here.

According to this book review:

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, authors of "Weapons of Mass Deception," claim the Bush administration has engaged in a deliberate and extraordinarily aggressive effort to rally public support for a war on Iraq, using propaganda, misinformation, distortions and outright lies. The authors brilliantly expose an interconnected web linking some of the country's largest public relations and advertising firms, the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card explained to the New York Times last September that military action against Iraq would be delayed for a few months because "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

The Iraqi National Congress, a group often presented by the media as an alliance of exiled dissidents, is in fact partly the creation of the Rendon Group (a PR firm on retainer to the Pentagon), which channeled $12 million of covert CIA funding to the organization between 1992 and 1996.

The authors convincingly argue that we should all be concerned about such propaganda, for although it may momentarily boost patriotic sentiment within the United States, much of the world views it in different terms. Seen from overseas, such spectacles as Bush landing on the aircraft carrier, portray a belligerent empire menacingly flexing its military muscles. It is difficult to think of a more effective way to create anxiety and resentment abroad.

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Authored by: dbsmall on Monday, April 12 2004

Huzzah! 23 troops killed in last 3 days. Man, I think some folks didn't get the "mission accomplished"/end of combat operations memo.

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