Propaganda, faulty information,
and our misunderstood government Donald Rumsfeld announced to a crowd of reporters on Feb. 17 that the controversial Pentagon-backed program that plants propaganda in Iraqi newspapers had “absolutely been completely shut down”, only to later announce that in fact he was given faulty information.
It’s hard to not feel sorry for the White House. They try and do the right thing, but some no-good beatnik is continually telling them lies. First it was WMDs, then the caves in Afghanistan. I’m guessing this guy is a relative of someone in the White House who dropped out of high school and now all of us are at his mercy.
You can’t blame the White House, though. No way. Someone else was supposed to fact-check this stuff before they tell anyone, and I’ll be damned if our leaders are supposed to tiptoe around the liberals in this country, who get hung up on these silly technicalities. After all, he did apologize.
The Nazi war machine found a well-placed bit of propaganda would not only kill the enemies morale, but also remind those they conquer that Nazis are generally friendly people who just want to free their neighbors from tyrannical oppression. With that in mind, it’s pretty clear why our press propaganda campaign is so important. We have to remind those Iraqis that freedom is within their reach if we take out Saddam. Now that we have, it’s up to them to figure out what happens next. We let them choose because we are such great guys. The only thing we ask of them is a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq; without one, our ability to extend a hand of freedom to their oppressed neighbors would be tragically hindered.
Besides, at the end of the day, when the walls are coming down around our ears, we always have the cousin, or intern, or aid, or adviser to blame. Don’t think for a second that the president and his office are responsible for their actions. Just don’t. The price of freedom is steep: the Geneva Convention, responsibility, and the truth.
