Rummy goes after The Enemy (hint: it ain't Bin Laden)

This is perfect: Rumsfeld Declares War on Bad Press by Emad Mekay Inter Press Service 02/21/06.

This means, among other things, that the Pentagon is likely to pour even more of our tax money into propaganda that makes its way into our own press thanks to what we generously call our "press corps". Great. We're paying to have ourselves bamboozled.

Mekay writes:

If similar efforts over the past five years are any example, the campaign is likely to take place in two main areas -- the U.S. media and the press in the Arab and Muslim worlds, where Washington sees its strategic influence as pivotal.

On Tuesday, Rumsfeld also said that the Pentagon is "reviewing" its practice of paying to plant good news stories in the Iraqi news media, contradicting a previous assertion that the controversial propaganda programme had been halted.

Critics here [in Washington] say the new media blitz joins a long list of decisions by the George W. Bush administration, such as ordering the National Security Agency to spy on U.S. citizens without warrants, monitoring library records, and compiling databases on U.S. citizens who disagree with the administration's policies, that are leading the country down an authoritarian path - ironically, one that is not far from those Middle Eastern regimes that have long clamped down on freedom of expression and independent journalism.

And they note that the U.S. mainstream media already tends towards a conservative interpretation of events, with scant regard for opposing views.

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