"Pentagon acknowledges fabricating a 'Zarqawi Legend'

Well..... what's left to say but.

I told you so, i told you so, i told you so.

globalresearch.ca

Pentagon acknowledges fabricating a "Zarqawi Legend"

by Michel Chossudovsky In an unusual twist, the Washington Post in a recent article, has acknowledged that the role of Zarqawi had been deliberately "magnified" by the Pentagon with a view to galvanizing public support for the US-UK led "war on terrorism":


"The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal military documents. "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response," one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed three methods: "Media operations," "Special Ops (626)" (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite U.S. military unit assigned primarily to hunt in Iraq for senior officials in Hussein's government) and "PSYOP," the U.S. military term for propaganda work..." (WP. 10 April 2006)

The military's propaganda program, according to the Washington Post, has "largely been aimed at Iraqis, but seems to have spilled over into the U.S. media. One briefing slide about U.S. "strategic communications" in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the "home audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the war." (WP, op cit.)

MORE....



i told you so.


[Mod Edit: External quote tags. Please review this post - Jak]

[edit on 23/4/06 by JAK]

[edit on 23-4-2006 by Syrian Sister]

There little motto is "Providing Insight and Influence in Challenging and Hostile areas" how fitting for them. The Lincoln group has been involved in other problems in the past and it seems like they have branched out into investments in Iraq now too. How convenient.

I hope some major news outlets carry that because you know that people will try to deny it. The story about how they had caught him and then saying he escaped was completly bogus.

In an unusual twist, the Washington Post in a recent article, has acknowledged that the role of Zarqawi had been deliberately "magnified" by the Pentagon with a view to galvanizing public support for the US-UK led "war on terrorism"

Please, let's try to keep ATS a "no-spin zone"

The source article says Zarqawi's role has been exaggerated, not made up completely from non-existence. There's a big difference.

Here's a quote from the Washington Post article. Notice it says he does exist.

Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks...

[edit on 4/23/2006 by eaglewingz]

[edit on 4/23/2006 by eaglewingz]

...and you know that the Washington Post article itself wasn't spin?

The point is, you can't trust anything they say.

And it fits in really neatly with a pattern that has been observed historically.

There's a new book out, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. by Steven Kinzer. Here's the link to the interview from which these sections were taken.

Now, there's one very interesting aspect of the Cuban press campaign that I think we see repeated periodically throughout American history, and that is, we never like to attack simply a regime. We like to have one individual. Americans love to have a demon, a certain person who is the symbol of all the evil and tyranny in the regime that we want to attack. We've had this with Khomeini, with Castro, with Qaddafi, various other figures over history.

Now, in the case of the Spanish-American War, we first thought we'd like to demonize the king of Spain, but there was no king of Spain. There was a queen, who was actually an Austrian princess, so she wouldn't work. The regent, her son, was actually just a 12-year-old kid, so he wouldn't work, either. So then, we decided to focus on the Spanish general, who was the commander of Spanish troops in Cuba, General Weyler, and for a time, Weyler was thought of as the epitome of all the carnal brutality that we attributed to Spanish colonialism.

We see this pattern again coming right up to the modern age, when we're always looking for some individual to point at. The idea behind this is that the natural state of all people in the world is to have U.S.-style democracy and to be friendly to the United States. If they're not, it must mean that there's only one person or one tiny clique that is preventing the people in this country from being the way they naturally would be, and if we could only just remove this one individual or this tiny clique, the people in that country would return to the normal state of all people, which is to wish to have the U.S. system of government and politics and economics and to embrace the United States.

There's lots more in the interview. I shall be getting a copy of this book.

[edit on 23-4-2006 by rich23]

Chuckles....Syrian! your back! ....and still fighting the goodfight I see....

As much as I try to dislike you for your views I cant!


good to see you back

*sighs* I have a soft spot for this little resistance fighter....

[edit on 23-4-2006 by XphilesPhan]

Syrian sister, you might want to edit the thread title to be more accurate.

Other than that, I remember seeing a post quite a while back by wecomeinpeace saying something along these lines. It looks like He (She?) was right. I believed it then and I believe it even more today.

eaglewingz
The source article says Zarqawi's role has been exaggerated, not made up completely from non-existence. There's a big difference.

Look, that's not the point (Unless you were correcting the somewhat misleading thread title.) The point is they are fabricating things. That's not good. We can't really get an idea of how bad they are blowing things out of proportion until we know what exactly they fabricated about the 'Zarqawi legend'. It might turn out he hasn't done half the things they say he has, and he may only be a fraction of the threat they say he is. If they are having to fabricate his legend, then he's hardly going to be worse than they say he is, is he?

eaglewingz
Here's a quote from the Washington Post article. Notice it says he does exist.

How do we know that's not just a complete fabrication? That's not an unreasonable possibility, considering the topic of this thread.

Originally posted by Syrian Sister
Well..... what's left to say but.

I told you so, i told you so, i told you so.
................

Did you even read the article from the Washington post?

Zarqawi does exist, and he has done attacks against coalition forces and Iraqis, it is on the word of one military officer who says that Zarqawi alone is not to be blamed for what the insurgency is doing in Iraq that gives any credence to the article, but you took that article and you twisted around the truth so that you can try your propaganda against the United States...

What else is there to say about you Syrian sister?....

Originally posted by Muaddib

Did you even read the article from the Washington post?

Zarqawi does exist, and he has done attacks against coalition forces and Iraqis, it is on the word of one military officer who says that Zarqawi alone is not to be blamed for what the insurgency is doing in Iraq that gives any credence to the article, but you took that article and you twisted around the truth so that you can try your propaganda against the United States...

Muadibb, did you even bother to read the initial article provided? The Pentagon has admitted fabricating and 'playing up' the Zarqawi image. In light of that admission you don't have a clue about Zarqawi. You don't know he's carried out attacks against coalition forces, you don't damn well know anything. It could all be faked. Don't you dare call me a 'stupid conspiracy theorist' for saying that either, just read the title of the source article and you'll see where I'm coming from.

A few relevant quotes from the article, for those who DIDN'T read it :

An internal document produced by U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, states that "the Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date

and:

t is difficult to determine how much has been spent on the Zarqawi campaign, which began two years ago and is believed to be ongoing. U.S. propaganda efforts in Iraq in 2004 cost $24 million, but that included extensive building of offices and residences for troops involved, as well as radio broadcasts and distribution of thousands of leaflets with Zarqawi's face on them, said the officer speaking on background...

Originally posted by rich23
A few relevant quotes from the article, for those who DIDN'T read it :

An internal document produced by U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, states that "the Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date

Psyops for who? Not for the Iraqi's. Not for the insurgents. For our consumption and the troops over there. Im so disgusted with all the lies, the exaggerations, the thievery, the collusion , and embezzlement. This has just become so embarrassing. Even 3rd world countries of the lowest caliber have more honor and integrity then this batch of weasels we have right now. Dems and Republicans alike. Lying to us as though we just don't matter.

So was he made up or just exaggerated? It sort of hints at both in the article.

I remember watching CNN sometime ago and in about two days according to them Zarqawi was in about 4 or 5 different places at once. Iran, Iraq, Syria and Jordan. Narrowly avoiding capture at every other turn.

Does anyone have the Washington Post article, and more importantly did they publish these Pentagon Documents?

PS. Title is still wrong.

Fabricated: Made up

Exagerated: Possibly exists, but hey...we are magnifying this thing to make you "scared" out of your wits....An exageration is a lie. Is it not?

WE KNEW IT. Want some water for that lump in your throats?

Thanks for making my day.

Interesting 'non biased' site there ....
All those anti-Bush, anti-America links ....

The title of this thread is dead wrong. The pentagon absolutely
DID NOT admit that there is no such thing as Zarqawi. They did
NOT make him up. He is real. He is deadly.

What they did is the same thing that any country that has been
a victim of agression did. They educated people as to who this
man is and unfortunately, in the process, made him larger than
life. He has been made to be bigger than he is. But make no
mistake .. he is real and he is deadly.

Change the title of this thread if you want any credibility
- or at least if you want more credibility than the allegedly
unbiased 'news' link (propaganda) that you posted to.

Here is the original Washington Post article: Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi

Honestly now, is anyone really surprised?

They acknowledged that he was part of a propaganda campeign. That is very different than educating the public (however with the public school system these days not much).

If you look at the news objectively, you will notice that there is always a specific figure that we need to be afraid of. One person to galvanize all of the anger and fear. This is true on both sides of the arguement. Anyone who is anti-war, and ant administration put most, if not all of their blame on GW Bush. This is a tactic used by the same people to derail focus from the real culprits and criminals in power.

The fact is everything that you see on the news is propoganda. The trick is trying to find out exactly what they want you to believe.

Its not a biased anti-american rant.

It is OBVIOUS what happened. To play up, exagerate, blow up a story out of proportions is a lie.

A non-truth.

Its like being a little pregnant. No such thing.

I want the truth from my government. That does not make me anti-anything.

Originally posted by dgtempe
It is OBVIOUS what happened. To play up, exagerate, blow up a story out of proportions is a lie.

You can nit-pick and word your sentences however you like but the fact still remains that Zarqawi is real and he is fighting our Military in Iraq, end of story. And there's no way to get around that.





[edit on 23-4-2006 by WestPoint23]