From today's Washington Post:
blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com
The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.All I want to say here is that Iraqis do not need entertainment programs to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government. They need electricity, clean water and jobs. When these things are provided, they will love the Americans and their government to death.
blog.bassamsebti@gmail.com
26 Comments:
It seems to me that $300 million could supply a lot of clean water and electricity! I know that Iraq had, and still does have, some of the best engineers in the region. American contractors have wasted billions of dollars that was supposed to be rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. I am sure that Iraqi engineers and Iraqi workers could have done a much better job at a much lower cost.
When these things are provided, they will love the Americans and their government to death.
i'm assuming you don't mean that literally.
yesterday when i read this i tried to post a rather long response and blogger ate it. this time i'll copy! (and dispense w/the 'who needs the tangible/adjust your mind' snark approach)
Uniformed communications specialists and contractors are now an integral part of U.S. military operations from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan and beyond.
how is this any different? is the "information/psychological operations" more enhanced? has it evolved? there have always been Uniformed communications specialists and contractors since pre invasion.
"The tools they're using, the means, the robustness of this activity has just skyrocketed since 2003. In the past, a lot of this stuff was just some guy's dreams,"
there, doesn't that make you feel better now?
"We're being out-communicated by a guy in a cave," Secretary Robert M. Gates often remarks.
somehow i doubt this.
"There's a video piece produced by a contractor . . . showing a family . . . . They don't know that the originator of the content is the U.S. government.
i doubt that. in fact i recall a post @ abbas's site discussing one of these propaganda videos, there didn't seem to be much doubt about who produces them.
"We definitely believe this is a growth area in the DOD," said Julian Setian, SOSi's chief operating officer. "We are seeing more and more requests for professional assistance in media-related strategic communications efforts, specifically in gauging of perceptions in foreign media with regard to U.S. operations."
if only iraqis had a different attitude about being occupied. if only iraqis had a different attitude about being jobless. if only iraqis had a different attitude about not having electricity. if only iraqis had an enhanced more positive perception of america and their own government things would really improve.. someone had the idea of doing an iraqi version of american idol. that would be reinforcing iraqis perceptions of themselves...too expensive...
they want to think 'out of the box'
showing a family being attacked by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The message is: You've got to stand up against the enemy."
i don't know, if i saw this in the evening before i went to sleep i might think...fear. it occurs to me iraqis have had plenty of personal experiences being attacked by a group of bad guys, so now they get to, see it on TV.
terra terra terra.
the idea is to attempt to erase any impression the US or their government is a threat to them (even tho experience may tell them something else)
You've got to stand up against the enemy.
who's the boogieman?
what do you guys think of mcCain's commercials? that voice all scary warning you of dangers of obama?
think they hire the same perception specialists?
. "We pay an extremely high price if we ever even make a slight error in putting out the facts."
lol, mcCain claims his commercials are all 'truth', even that weird sex education video.
The Iraqi government has little input on U.S. operations
how reassuring.
Contractors will also develop and maintain Web sites; assess news articles in the Iraqi, U.S. and international media; and determine ways to counter coverage deemed negative, according to the contract solicitation the government posted in May. Polls and focus groups will be used to monitor Iraqi attitudes under a separate three-year contract totaling up to $45 million.
polls and web sites. 45 million. "communicate effectively with our strategic audiences (i.e. Iraqi, pan-Arabic, International, and U.S. audiences) to gain widespread acceptance of [U.S. and Iraqi government] core themes and messages."
i wonder what the breakdown is. how much of this 45 million goes towards the bloggers who get paid to counter information deemed hostile to US efforts, in english vs arab.
Gates has publicly questioned the "creeping militarization" of tasks civilians traditionally perform.
it's all part and parcel of what we export. security by any means. the politics of fear.
State estimates it will spend $5.6 million on public diplomacy in Iraq in fiscal 2008.
(out w/the old and in w/the new, a measly 5.6 mil)
"I'm not a huge fan" of information operations, one military official said, adding that Iraqi opinions -- as for most people -- are formed more by what they experience than by what they read in a newspaper, hear on the radio or see on billboards.
yep. as for most people. but what would we do on these boards if we didn't have the paid bots telling us what to think.
i wonder how much of the budget goes towards anti islam crap?
American contractors have wasted billions of dollars that was supposed to be rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure
david, it isn't waste. it stimulates the US economy. it is a redistribution of wealth from the US taxpayer to US defense industry, the more privatized the better. socialize the debt, privatize the profit. that's where the money is. what we invest in health care, education, infrastructure, here or in iraq is a drop in the bucket. the real money is in the militarization of the state.
i read something this morning that reminded me of what i just posted and i thought i would share it w/you.
Conservative groups have spent more than ten million dollars on ads tying Obama to Ayers, and so far, Americans don't seem to give a heck. (This tells us what about how we're going to make that mortgage payment?)
politics by fear. instead of dealing w/issues that impact the lives of people the gop (the same think tanks who are calling the shots in iraq) are making scare videos about 'the enemy'. will this get rid of the enemy? no. the whole point (same objective of the extreme rightwing shadow governments in the years of lead/cold war) is to make the population embrace a rightwing government. thru fear.
what a load of crap.
i would like to say something else about propaganda thru fear. this next quote is from william kristol @ the (current) weekly standard. the reason that is so important is because i don't think you can find a clearer example of a mouthpiece for the neocons. the kind of influence that best represents who's controlling our policies under dick cheney. it permeates every decision they make.
regarding how to impress apon the american people to vote for john mcCain, instead of dealing w/say..the issues that matter to americans or why mcCain is more qualified. this is kristol's idea of their winning hand.
what kind of offensive?
.... More important is the negative message. The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can't trust Barack Obama to be our next president. This has an ideological component and a character component
can you see the similarity? fear, terror, ayers. more importantly, they don't need to 'win' the election, just like they don't need to 'win' in iraq. they only need to create a clear narrative how they could have won, to be able to steal an election.
by the same token in iraq, they don't have to actually succeed, simply create a narrative that takes the blame away from themselves and focus it elsewhere as the reason iraq is the way it is.
it is ok for america if iraq remains weak, as long as america doesn't get blamed for it. remember the goal of this information campaign:
the "statement of work" included in the proposal, written by the U.S. Joint Contracting Command in Iraq,'to gain widespread acceptance of [U.S. and Iraqi government] core themes and messages'
one might think it would be more effective to spend that money on actually hiring iraqis to do the nuts and bolts of making iraq function (if in fact a functioning iraq were the priority), instead this money is being spent to convince iraqis who the enemy is, and who their friends are.
mind games
"When these things are provided, they will love the Americans and their government to death." _____ That's very unlikely. The Iraqis will remember all the bad things Americans did, and forget all the good things. Anyway, electricity and water are the responsibility of the Iraq Government, and jobs are the responsibility of Iraq's private sector. _____ If the US Government wants to waste its money on fatuous propaganda, that is for the US voters to deal with.
"That's very unlikely. The Iraqis will remember all the bad things Americans did, and forget all the good things."
No we won't. We will try to forget because efforts to bring back normal life will help us heal our wounds and try to move on with our lives. As long as there are mistakes, corruption and underestimation, there is no peace.
Why do you think Iraqis do not trust the Americans anymore? Why do you think they always say,"The Americans reached the moon but are not able to fix the electricity."? It's because they want these things. We had them, even though they weren't perfect, but they were functioning.
We want functioning infrastructure. We want jobs. When Iraqis are hired, they will care about their country. But that's not happening. The Americans bring hundreds of thousands of foreign laborers and workers from countries like Nepal, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and other countries as if Iraq has no people on its land.
Haven't these things become obvious yet? It's been almost 6 years, for heaven's sake!
from today's latimes.
Iraq too dangerous for many professionals
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it monitored numbers at the main border crossing linking Iraq to Syria from January to July this year and found that 7,200 more Iraqis left than entered.
the article says lots of devastating things i won't repeat.
don, Anyway, electricity and water are the responsibility of the Iraq Government, and jobs are the responsibility of Iraq's private sector.
apparently you missed the new theme for the US military. 'stability operations'.
we are now in the nation building business.
The Army on Monday will unveil an unprecedented doctrine that declares nation-building missions will probably become more important than conventional warfare and defines "fragile states" that breed crime, terrorism and religious and ethnic strife as the greatest threat to U.S. national security.
The operations directive underpinning the manual "elevated stability operations to a status equal to that of the offense and defense," the manual reads, describing the move as a "fundamental change in emphasis" for the Army.
The new manual aims to orchestrate and plan for a range of military tasks to stabilize ungoverned nations: protecting the people; aiding reconstruction; providing aid and public services; building institutions and security forces; and, in severe cases, forming transitional U.S. military-led governments.
bureaucratic unrest surrounded the writing of the Army stability manual, Leonard said, pointing to disputes over questions such as whether to the document should enshrine "democracy" as a goal of stability operations, a move that was ultimately rejected.
isn't that reassuring.
Annie,
Mmmm...I got about a third of the way through your first comment before I started scrolling. To about here:
"We're being out-communicated by a guy in a cave," Secretary Robert M. Gates often remarks.
somehow i doubt this.
Actually, I agree with you. I really don't think OBL is still in a cave somewhere. That organization has become more sophisticated.
Bassam
"That's very unlikely. The Iraqis will remember all the bad things Americans did, and forget all the good things." Don Cox
No we won't. Bassam
This reminds me of something I saw in a news program the other day. They were following the new commander in Iraq on a walk around of an Iraqi neighborhood. They were asking one of the street vendors what the negatives and positives were of having the US military there. The main negative he mentioned was the raiding of homes by US forces. When then asked if the number of raids was high, the Iraqi said no, they have actually gone down. So, apparently even though we have tried to improve this situation, it is what happened in the past that is still remembered. But the vendor did say that one of the positives was that our forces try to work with the local citizens.
We want functioning infrastructure. We want jobs.
Of course, just like anybody else. I think they understand this. And they are working on it. But a lot of these things are up to the Iraqi government.
The Americans bring hundreds of thousands of foreign laborers and workers from countries like Nepal, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and other countries as if Iraq has no people on its land.
You mean for infrastructure rebuilding projects? Hmmm...I suppose this has to do with lack of trust on our part. It's the flip side of Iraqis not trusting us. However, I thought that there have been efforts to incorporate the Iraqi work force into these projects? If not, there certainly should be.
.I suppose this has to do with lack of trust on our part. It's the flip side of Iraqis not trusting us.
we don't trust you, you don't trust us...but that will all be taken care of shortly w/the new and improved narrative realignment compliments of DOD new 'media' campaign.
I really don't think OBL is still in a cave somewhere. That organization has become more sophisticated.
assuming 'out-communicated' wasn't part of your affirmative response should we take this to mean you DO think OBL&co have out-communicated the empire's propaganda apparatus?
and if so, how.
Annie,
assuming 'out-communicated' wasn't part of your affirmative response should we take this to mean you DO think OBL&co have out-communicated the empire's propaganda apparatus?
and if so, how.
Yes, Annie, I do think that OBL and his ilk have far "out-communicated" us in the past.
You have only to look at the actions of Iraqis who have hooked up with al-Qaida in the past, with the idea that they are preferable to the U.S. They found out it was a mistake. If they knew more about us, they might have saved themselves that heartache.
I don't know what this media campaign in Iraq will really entail. It sounds a lot like what they have done in the past. We will see.
I agree with you. Really beautiful if we could live side by side without wat. I like your blog. You care about the oppressed group. Regards. Seno
Thanks, Seno. I'm one of those who lived their lives with difficulties and struggle due to wars and international sanctions. I feel them and I will always work to let my voice heard.
regards,
b
You have only to look at the actions of Iraqis who have hooked up with al-Qaida in the past, with the idea that they are preferable to the U.S.
lynn, what makes you come to the conclusion this is a result of masterful communication programs by OBL as opposed to choices certain iraqis have made wrt their personal assessments of events surrounding them?
Bassam, i read something this morning i wanted to call to your attention. it is OT
Iraq: US dropped nuclear bomb near Basra in 1991, claims veteran
Rome, 8 Oct. (AKI) - An American veteran of the first Gulf War in Iraq claims that the United States dropped a five-kilotonne nuclear bomb in 1991 in a deserted area outside the southern city of Basra on the Iranian border.
The claim by US war veteran Jim Brown was made during an interview included in a 30-minute current affairs report to be broadcast by Italian state news channel RaiNews24 on Thursday.
Brown told the Italian news channel that the bombing took place on the last day of the war in Iraq on 27 February 1991.
RaiNews24 claims to have conducted its own inquiry and found that a seismic event took place on that day equal to a five-kilotonne blast.
The network cited the online archives of the International Seismological Center, a non-profit UK-based organisation, as confirmation of its research.
The Italian journalist in charge of the inquiry Maurizio Torrealta told Adnkronos International (AKI) that there is no definitive proof of the nuclear blast and that it should not be taken as a fact.
Instead he asked the international community to further investigate the claims by Brown.
"We are asking journalists and the international community for help, in order to clarify this," said Torrealta.
However, in the documentary, which was shown to the media on Wednesday, Torrealta said that one of the possible reasons that the US may have dropped the bomb, was in retribution for the launch of Scud missiles on the US Dhahran military base in Saudi Arabia on 25 February.
there is more to the story, i urge you to check it out.
Annie quoted:
"The Italian journalist in charge of the inquiry Maurizio Torrealta told Adnkronos International (AKI) that there is no definitive proof of the nuclear blast and that it should not be taken as a fact."
International Seismological Center
I spent about an hour at this site. I found no record at this nonprofit center which is a consortium of university scientists that supports the claims made by the US individual. What this journalist says that they can't confirm a record of a nuclear blast. I would go further and say there is no record of any activity on or near that date . But of course for true believers this absence of a record doesn't mean a thing. :-)
RaiNews24 claims to have conducted its own inquiry and found that a seismic event took place on that day equal to a five-kilotonne blast.
The network cited the online archives of the International Seismological Center, a non-profit UK-based organisation, as confirmation of its research.
edo, perhaps it wasn't the same as the online archive you accessed. i went to the International Seismological Center website and found some of their archives.The consortium was named Group 2 Consortium and led by Science Appplications International Corp. somehow i doubt saic would include this data tho.
I would go further and say there is no record of any activity on or near that date
why not go all the way then? why not say that Italian state news channel RaiNews24 was lying when they claimed to source this information.
also, i would like to point out that i did find activity on the site 'on or near that date ' in about 5 minutes of fiddling around, so i don't think you looked very hard.
from wiki
Seismographs are instruments that sense and record the motion of the Earth. Networks of seismographs today continuously monitor the seismic environment of the planet, allowing for the monitoring and analysis of global earthquakes and tsunami warnings, as well as recording a variety of seismic signals arising from non-earthquake sources ranging from explosions (nuclear and chemical), to pressure variations on the ocean floor induced by ocean waves (the global microseism), to cryospheric events associated with large icebergs and glaciers. Above-ocean meteor strikes as large as ten kilotons of TNT, (equivalent to about 4.2 × 1013 J of effective explosive force) have been recorded by seismographs. A major motivation for the global instrumentation of the Earth with seismographs has been for the monitoring of nuclear testing.
the earth moves all the time, the data i accessed from the site had movement every day.
But of course for true believers this absence of a record doesn't mean a thing. :-)
i can appreciate (from your grin) how this issue is amusing for you.
fyi i found some data @ that site (in about 5 minutes) that confirmed that they have records showing everyday there's activity somewhere on the planet, so i am a little surprised after spending an hr there you would say something as rediculous as this..
I would go further and say there is no record of any activity on or near that date .
that said, if you choose to believe the Italian state news channel RaiNews24 is downright lying about sourcing this, so be it.
i don't know what happened but i do know things happen all the time governments lie about (like for instance, the gulf war syndrome).
that said, i am not going to defend or argue this topic. i found it interesting and posted it.
your post proved to me one thing, you are one very lousy searcher. an hr? lol.
sorry for the double post. i was posting and my foxfire went blank, so i made another post.
something else occurred to me when i thought about this later on.
there is a lot of hostility out there w/the official response from the US gov/military from veterans w/gulf war syndrome. many people think it is a result of the vaccinations. personally, i do not believe it is all just a coincidence so many veterans came down w/life debilitating health problems. this doesn't address the repercussians on iraqis.
for this reason i wouldn't consider this soldier to be an impartial witness. i don't know what the truth is, but i know the government is lying about the gulf war syndrome and its possible causes.
whether this veterans GWS hostility impacted this person and led to this story in either an honest or dishonest way is an idea i take into consideration as i do the silence/lies coming from the PTB regarding the GWS.
Bassam, i heard Barak was in philly today and wondered if you made an effort to go see him, i have seen photos of the crowd, impressive.
Whew, Well annie, I stand by what I said, if you prove to me with a link that there was a 5kt blast in Basra 2/27/91 according to ISA then I tip my hat to you. I learned alot about the agency and their work, how they do their work, their standards for vetting the information, etc. I searched the Excel file for 1991 and did not find anything listed on that date. If you learned what I overlooked in 5 min. I want to know about it.
Please send the link to show it.
Annie,
I wish I could see Obama. I no longer live in Philly. I live in Washington, D.C. now!!!
Bassam, there is a new article out by WAPO that informs us of this controversial program
U.S. Military Plans Polls and Focus Groups in Iraq
the fact that the polls and focus groups are financed by the U.S. military may not be revealed to participants. One provision of the contract solicitation prohibits the contractor or its personnel from disclosing "any aspects of the work performed under this contract, including the identity of the sponsor," unless approved by the military.
yeah, i could understand how one might not want to be catagorized as 'anti occupation' since one might worry an option of the occupying forces would be to simply eliminate segments of the population that deemed them hostile to their presence..
The expansion of military involvement in such activities, which were once the province of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is raising concerns not only on Capitol Hill but also inside the Defense Department.
....
In a letter sent to Gates last week, Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked for suspension of the new Army contracts to produce print, radio and television news stories as well as entertainment programs in Iraq. "At a time when this country is facing such a grave economic crisis . . . it makes little sense for the Department of Defense to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to propagandize the Iraqi people," he wrote.
Bassam, i love parts of DC, i think i had either forgotten you moved there or never knew. maybe you will be able to go to the inaguration parade.
edo, i just saw your last comment when i came over to place that wapo link. i am heading off my computer @ present but will track down the linkage when i get back later today.
as an aside, had i found this 'proof' i would have said so, i did not find that. however i find it highly unlikely the files i found would have come to this conclusion since they were headed up by SAIC, the same think tank that designs our wars.
the gap was rather odd tho since they didn't resgister another earthquake in italy a few days from the event, one lots of people felt.
no time now, but i'll get back to you. it was under data...i also ran into a european site that records like.. 50 murmerings for every day. i'll check my computers history from the other day for the route i took.
edo, i responded to you yesterday and it looks like Bassam either didn't get it, or just hasn't posted yet, so excuse me if i repeat myself regarding 'proof'. if i could prove to you from the link there was a blast on basra at that date i would have said so.
site i found in 5 minutes or less from the home page of International Seismological Center.
I would go further and say there is no record of any activity on or near that date .
here is a link (different site) to show you how there are siesmatic reports everyday check it out.
it looks like there were about 100 reports in the last 48 hrs.
again, here's what the report on ICS said
The paper describes a three-year effort of collecting, vetting and validating ground truth events in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and western Eurasia, carried out by a consortium of institutes from both academia and private industry. The consortium was named Group 2 Consortium and led by Science Appplications International Corp. with consortium members University of Colorado at Boulder, Harvard University, University of California at San Diego, Multimax, Inc., Western Services, and the Geophysical Institute of Israel.
that's SAIC. do you know who they are?
needless to say, i think there may have been a little scrubbing around the week in question. why? well for one thing there data skips a rather notable earthquake mentioned here
A geological, seismic and hydrogeological survey of the February 23, 1991 Cassino earthquake
which rather debunks you theory of nothing 'near' the date. it seems rather unlikely a think tank like SAIC would be publishing a report about a seismatic event they wouldn't acknowledge even if it was true. however, i think there is a chance the information could have been collected thru the site, like from one of these pages
IOW, the site could have been used as a portal.
regardless, i'm not sure why you are so bent on debunking this guy, tho it is certainly your prerogative. i don't know what happened but i do know the ptb are keeping their cards very close to their chests in terms of coming clean about what they know in terms of the gulf war syndrome, throwing many veterans under the bus. somebodies not being truthful.
at all.
Annie, communication mis-match, (are you sure you aren't Japanese ;-).
PS My grin, was caught, luckily in my first post, for my last line was intended "to rattle your cage".
PPS. I have just been reading about the secular vs religious ripples in the Turkish pond. The choice to wear the veil or not is only one image of the underlying struggle with identity in Turkey and elsewhere.
I wonder about Treasure and Annie's take on the situation there.
The commenters which I was more interested in than the article believe implicitly that "there is no moderate Islam". And the issue of allowing the veil is similar to what the US gov. in order to support the interruption of Vietnamese society argued in that if we allowed Vietnam to go Commie, the rest of Asia would soon fall. IN Turkey it is that if one freedom is allowed (to cover or not) then other freedoms will eventually fall (the right to drink liquor during Ramadan, make love in public, etc.) Ohhh what delicious irony.
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/10/14/world/europe/14turkey.html
Sorry I still haven't practiced how to make the links the way Annie does :-(
Annie, communication mis-match, (are you sure you aren't Japanese ;-).
;) to you too! i'm turning japanese i think i'm turning japanese i really think so..do you know that song. btw, i was featured on a japanese tv show called 'the miracle' or something like that. a japanese film crew was at my house for a whole day! they did a reenactment of me using a japanese actress. life is full of surprises.
from your link..
Turkey is now run by a party of observant Muslims, but its reigning ideology and law are strictly secular, dating from the authoritarian rule in the 1920s of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a former army general who pushed Turkey toward the West and cut its roots with the Ottoman East. For some young people today, freedom means the right to practice Islam, and self-expression means covering their hair.
They are redrawing lines between freedom and devotion, modernization and tradition, and blurring some prevailing distinctions between East and West.
all in all i thought it was a very thought provoking article. i can sense this struggle for identity as an individual, a nation, and a culture that is happening in turkey has many similarities w/issues going on in the US but at the same time is uniquely turkish, in terms of what their society is going thru. one can't help but admire Ms. Yilmaz's gumption and creativity in terms of how she goes about interacting in her community.
the whole religious vs secular thing is sometimes very baffling for me for it is truly very hard for me to actually conceptualize how people can be so bent on religion, because i am not. but i have to accept it no matter how nuts i think it is because it is simply part of the culture of humans and therefor i am forced to deal w/this as we all are. i am for self expression and individual liberties and rights and if being observant of ones religion is right for one religion, i have to respect it in the others, and that goes for not imposing ones morals or religion on anybody else. that goes for imposing one secularness on others. if this means enforcing dress codes to eliminate signs of a persons religion then it should be across the board, like no wearing of crosses etc. it seems weird to ban the wearing of a scarf. seriously, it is only a scarf. the scarf has meaning only to those that wear it, as a necklace does. i mean if someone wants to wear a swastika pin (a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Mithraism, native american culture)..it would offend me but i don't have the right to make them take it off. or do i? where do we draw the line? if we do it for some, we have to be across the board. we cannot think 'oh, to me a scarf means submission of women, therefore that is what it means to you'.
lately i have been very aware of the islamophobia creeping into our culture (i mentioned this on the forward thread) it seems like everyday i am hearing more of the awareness of this and the pushback. just today i read Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting on Islamophbia. an excellent review, i recommend reading the report.
this assault on one of the worlds most prominent religions practiced by over a billion people threatens the stability of cultures everywhere. we must be diligent to respect the rights of others religious freedoms or we are no better than fanatics and extremists in any religion.
very complicated.
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