Propaganda Squared

by emptywheel

I've been referring to Brigadier Bergner as Baghdad Bergner since he first started giving press conferences. There was the press conference where he blamed Iran for the woes in Iraq, based on the interrogation of one Shiite. There's this press conference where he blamed all the woes in Iraq on Al Qaeda in Iraq. The man clearly has no shame at telling the most transparent lies--from a podium not far from where his predecessor Baghdad Bob used to do the same.

But I gotta say, as someone whose credentials for analyzing all things postmodern are impeccable, this makes me dizzy.

In March, he was declared captured. In May, he was declared killed, and his purported corpse was displayed on state-run TV. But on Wednesday, Abu Omar Baghdadi, the supposed leader of an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Iraq, was declared nonexistent by U.S. military officials, who said he was a fictional character created to give an Iraqi face to a foreign-run terrorist organization.

An Iraqi actor has been used to read statements attributed to Baghdadi, who since October has been identified as the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq group, said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.

Bergner said the new information came from a man captured July 4, described as the highest-ranking Iraqi within the Islamic State of Iraq.

He said the detainee, identified as Khalid Abdul Fatah Daud Mahmoud Mashadani, has served as a propaganda chief in the organization, a Sunni Muslim insurgent group that swears allegiance to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

Here's our shameless propaganda chief, claiming that their shameless propaganda chief invented a bogeyman that we could then say we had captured. Because it's not like we've invented such bogeymans for our own use, nuh uh, not us. And conveniently, this little hall of mirrors ends up right back where BushCo would like to have us, with the claim that Al Qaeda in Iraq is Al Qaeda is the War on Terror is the never-ending war is the big bogeyman no one seems to care about anymore.

Now, to her credit, reporter Tina Susman provides two caveats presumably designed to suggest she can tell bullshit when she sees it:

There was no way to confirm the military's claim, which comes at a time of heightened pressure on the White House to justify keeping U.S. troops in Iraq. Critics of the Bush administration say the president has been trying to do so by linking Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network to the conflict in Iraq, even though the organization had no substantial presence here until after the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.

[snip]

The announcement was the latest in a series of statements from U.S. officials here blaming foreign elements for Iraq's violence. They accuse Iran of providing weapons and training to Shiite militias and Sunni extremists, and say Al Qaeda-linked groups are pouring foreign fighters into the country. Earlier, the U.S. had said Iraq's Shiite militias were the biggest problem facing security forces.

You kind of have to sympathize--it's not considered polite, after all, to say, "Baghdad Bergner has given a series of press conferences to present dubious claims that all seem to fit George Bush's latest justification of the war; his credibility, like that of his predecessor, Baghdad Bob, remains doubtful."

But it'd be nice if she just used the moniker Baghdad Bergner. That ought to do the trick.

Comments

[J. Thomason]

On the level of principle what has emerged in the United States is a cabal of business interests willing to use deceit and violence to hold up the bottom line. If nothing else principle is founded in historical experience allowing an existence in a kind of transcendence of brutal instinct. The irony here is that the totalitarian extremes of both imperial and commutarian idealogies posit the emergence of an ultimate condition in historical time dispensing with the need of inquiry incumbent to history. The neoimperial mindset discounts not only principled inquiry but also the humane values of true ingenuity and enterprise which in modernity has raised the standard of living for all.

Unless the fraudulent and violent aspirations rife in our politics are checked we can expect decades of dark isolation. The challenge of the confidence of the media in the Pavolian attachment to brutality is formidable. We can only hope that the voices of reporters and commentators like Sussman, CNN's Ware, Moyers, Marcy and Josh Marshall can break the spell of the trance built up around the "big lie" and solid leadership will emerge to represent the reascendancy of reason. The human experience with warlords and strongmen is established. The speculation is not strained to imagine Cheney, though he would surely deny it, envying the savage power of the Soviet Politburo. Let us hope more can see that we can do better than that. In the end as a gesture of honor to generations of ancestors who have pursued the emergence of enlightened humanity, the understanding that no idealogy or rationalization excuses wanton agressive violence must be asserted and the tactical gauntlet of reestablishing global comity negotiated. For what will we stand?

[allan_in_upstate]

Since when did John Fowles become a consultant to DOD?
I thought he was dead.
But perhaps that was just an actor...

[mainsailset]

Bush's choice today to deny the SCHIP Bill to give uninsured American children better health care-latest example that at every step he cheats the care of his own people in order to fund his lie of a war. And as we've chipped away the reasons, the logistics, the humanity, all that is left of his policies are the lies.

[JEP]

well, at least Bush is finally expressing his ignorance in straight language, he claims he doesn't support the childcare bill because it might take some business away from insurance companies...

I realize Bush's base probably understands the ideological implications that Bush is fronting here, just to make sure his bubbas in the insurance industry get their booty, but the gerneal public will probably consider it "non-compassionate conservatism."

I thought Tony Snow was our own version of "Baghdad Bob?"

[OldCoastie]

lots about this admin makes me dizzy... so much so, I'm tempted to go see the ENT dr.

[JohnJ]

The redneck base has been told that the extra money for the children's health care bill is to cover illegal aliens.

[J. Thomason]

JEP-thanks for spelling ideological correctly. I even looked it up to double check but didn't get around to making needed changes.

[semiot]

I'm reminded of a quotation from John C. Lilly: "That which you believe to be true is true, or will become true if you believe it."

[sona]

Such a weird and farcical storyline - an identified enemy is captured, the prisoner turns into a corpse and then poof! mutates into a ghost that never existed!!!! Some powerful magic in that surge.