Good post. The part about retaliatory strikes is good -- as that is precisely what our use of propaganda is.

Ironically -- or should I sad, sadly -- this campaign is also retaliating against our very own media, whose coverage has been almost uniformly sensationalistic and dire.

Thanks, Jeff. Although I can't shake the feeling I spent way too much time and effort and vodka on a trivial issue. Especially considering I find it difficult to believe that Welch believes what he wrote.

Steve -- I wasn't comparing nerve gas to buying newspapers. I was responding to this assertion --- "Propaganda is a weapon in war. When any weapon is in the hands of our military, it is an asset. Weapons are bad only when they are in the hands of the enemy."

That assertion, I believe, is wrong, because some weapons are useless, and others bring negative PR consequences that outweigh their positive on-the-ground effect. I believe, and argued in that post, that unlabeled propaganda aimed at the citizens whose country we occupy is not a particularly effective "weapon."

As for Why We Lost Vietnam & whatnot, I'll leave that to you experts.

I'm no expert, Matt - but I do seem to at least have read some history.

On a slightly less personal note...

You're still talking past the issue here. I admit that the Pentagon's propaganda effort "probably isn't doing much either way," - a fact you willfully (I assume) ignore.

But my posts haven't been about the specifics of this particular effort; they've been about the generalities. So it's a shame you've gotten even the generalities wrong, because there's a great debate to be had here.

Right: now I'm supposed to be afraid of words and ideas.

And how other people might think badly about me because my words and ideas because, well, it's "propaganda."

Well, it might be "propaganda," but if it's also the "truth," what does that make it in a war?

And Welch is just a dipshi* for suggesting that words and ideas are non-deployable in times of war because there's NO logical case he can make for not wanting to talk the other side into laying down its arms. NONE.

Idiot.

Oh, right, maybe he's an arsehole who wants US to lay down OUR weapons.

Frackin' A-hole oughta be forced to walk 100 miles with an old timey Underwood strapped to his back just to make him realize the power of words.

Stephen,
Good post.

Welch makes the totally unsubstantiated assertion about stories that were printed saying that, "because some weapons are useless, and others bring negative PR consequences that outweigh their positive on-the-ground effect." Implying that these stories will somehow backfire on our efforts.

Really? How so? Do you even know what the stories that were printed were? Have you read them? Maybe you have, but I doubt it. Precisely how do these stories bring negative PR consequences to the coalition?

They can't bring any more negative PR consequences than our own main stream media has continually and almost exclusively brought to our efforts not only in Iraq, but to the war on terror as a whole.

Further, what's wrong with putting out articles that shed light on some of the good things the coalition forces are doing? Lord knows our own media doesn't and won't do that. Hell we even paid to have them printed. Think saddam's goons ever paid anyone (other than western diplomats, UN functionaries and George Galloway)to print favorable things about them? Ask Michael Moore and Eason Jordan about that.

Take a deep breath, sit back and try to put this into perspective.

In less than four years, we have...
a) Removed the Taliban from power and made it possible for a freely elected government to rule in Afghanistan.
b) Removed one of the most murderous and psychotic dictators since Pol Pot, from Iraq. Hell, Saddam's even going to get a trial where there is a possibility that he may be found 'not guilty.' Contrast that to the Saddam brand of justice that was found at the business end of an industrial shredder or an acid vat.
c) Enabled free elections to occur in Iraq and pave the way for a new elected government to be installed.
d) Tied up many terroroists in a low level no-win conflict away from US and European soil (for the most part) and put terrorists world wide on the defensive.

I could go on, but you to get the point. And we have done this in less than four years with under 2500 casualties! This is a singular achievement almost unheard of in the annals of modern war and our MSM paints the whole effort a an unwinnable quagmire and now the MSM bitches and acts shocked, shocked about some harmless stories that the coalition 'paid' to get into local papers and then try to reduce it through some phony moral equivalence to the level of the terrorists efforts?

Wow.

Thanks for reminding me why I did stopped reading Reason.

Thanks for the great post.
This whole issue makes me so mad I can hardly stand it. I've risked my ass for the war in Iraq. I’m and Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician. I disarm bombs for a living. My team and I took apart 30 odd IEDs during our time in Baghdad. My unit as a whole disabled over 100. We also kept who knows how many roadside bombs from being constructed by blowing up caches when they were found (over 4 tons of explosives destroyed by my unit alone). Other units since our tour have done FAR more. Notably, an EOD unit recently destroyed 175 tons of ordnance destined to be used in roadside bombs. That’s more than enough to show up on seismometers 100s of miles away. It didn’t make the news though. In fact, few have bothered to tell EOD’s story in the MSM. The recent Hot Zone story on EOD ( http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs1616 ) is as close as anyone outside the military has come to acknowledging the efforts of my colleagues.
Now a few harmless pieces of positive news/propaganda have been placed in Iraqi papers and all hell breaks loose in the MSM?
This whole deal smells like Abu Ghraib all over again. The MSM just can’t seem to get the whole moral equivalency thing right. Of course, since they have had a monopoly on the war propaganda up till now, it’s understandable why they’re upset. I’d like just once to turn on the news and see someone acknowledge that we’ve done far more good than harm, instead of the reverse. My lost EOD brothers and all the other lost Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines deserve to be fairly represented. Having their efforts marginalized and lied about is a travesty.

Matt's entire point can be summed up thusly:

It looks bad.

And he's right, it looks bad.

But the next question is: so what? I would be a lot more disturbed if the military were payiing newspapers to NOT run certain stories, or otherwise censor the press, but they're not, that I know of anyway.

We're in the middle of what Sun-Tzu would call a war between the very weak and the very strong. The only way the very weak can win is to convince the very strong to stop fighting. Propaganda is one of the very weak's most important weapons. It only makes sense to counter it. The method chosen by the military may not cynical westerners, but then it's not really aimed at folks like Welch, is it? It's intended to counter propaganda in the theatre of conflict itself. As long as the military doesn't start presenting disinformation via these articles, then I say no harm no foul. But that's just me.

And I love Reason Magazine. I've been a subscriber for 20 years =8^]

:peter

Personally, I don't care even if they do use disinformation, so long as in the end it is beneficial.

The important thing is winning.

"It looks bad"

You sum up the whole Leftist mindset right there.

It's all about looks. Not about substance, ethics, morality or what works best.

You sum up the whole Leftist mindset right there.

It's all about looks. Not about substance, ethics, morality or what works best.

I wouldn't call it a mindset, I'd call it an inability to distinguish between form and function. And you're right, it's utterly pervasive across their entire worldview.

:peter

It's not that it looks bad at all, it's that we're supposed to have free press, dammit, says the paid columnist. This is an external reality independent of anything, you see. We don't guarantee a free press because democracy doesn't work unless you can report the news and persuade people and change their minds, we guarantee it because it's the press. So in a war zone, in a foreign country, which everybody's stomping their feet about not being sufficiently free yet so we can go home, they need a free press, too. To undermine Iraq's free press is to show a "disturbing lack of faith in the ennobling power of American values." Let's plop a free press into Syria, while we're at it, and everyone will get ennobled and hardly anyone will blow up.

It's supposed to be a "free and independent" press that's so vital to democracy (in the eyes of the media pundits).

Never mind our saints in the media are paid good salaries. Never mind it costs money to buy newsapapers. Never mind the adverstisers.

What navel gazing. They piss all over our Founders and the Constitution and pretend it's THEM that the whole system rides on. Pah.

TO: Stephen Green
RE: Never?

"This country has never used nerve gas, period." -- Stephen Green

Interesting.

I would have thought we'd have tested our chemical munitions for effectiveness, if nothing else.

Not against an enemy in the field, per si, but in a lab or otherwise controlled environment.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Based on that sort of reasoning, Chuck, lots of other nations have used atomic weapons.

Actually, it goes farther than just research. There was an unfortunate incident during WWII wherein a supply of mustard gas, meant to be held in reserve in case Germany unleashed any of theirs, was unintentionally released on Bari, Italy. It was a tragedy, but not an act of evil.

2 points: (1) in war one fights with the weapons that come to hand and are effective. (2) the next time you see or read someone's obvious press release in the MSM, the important distinction appears to be "at least it's not the military".