Rumsfeld Requests 24-hour Propaganda Machine

jasonditz writes "The BBC is reporting that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is unhappy with the existing propaganda systems in place and insists that the US must create a 'more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine' or risk losing the battle for the minds of Muslims. In an era where we've already got government-created and funded media outlets and the Pentagon bribing Iraqi journalists to run favorable war stories, not to mention other departments paying journalists to endorse their positions, it begs the question, how much more can they possibly do?"

Comments

Logic Nazis...

[Ibanez]

*patiently waits for logic nazis to explain how it RAISES the question, not BEGS it.*

WTF? When did this become Daily Kos???

[DesScorp]

Why the hell are we putting these political stories up now? Bad enough that we do it at all, but Slashdot is fast becoming a kind of geeky Daily Kos; Taco and all you other editors...you guys have to be approving this stuff. Non-technical political articles shouldn't be posted, simply because this isn't the place for them. What's next? Stories about the CIA bombing the Twin Towers on Bush's orders? A guest column from Michael Moore? What's else?

Re:flip-flop?

[LordLucless]

Well, it actually isn't a flip-flop, if you realize that the war in Iraq has absolutely no connection whatsoever to action against al-Qaeda. It wasn't a flip-flop, it was just George forgetting his own lies for a few seconds and letting a bit of truth slip out.

Too late

[HangingChad]

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is unhappy with the existing propaganda systems in place and insists that the US must create a 'more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine' or risk losing the battle for the minds of Muslims.

I think it's pretty safe to say we already lost that battle. Here are a few suggestions, which you'll continue to ignore:

• Get rid of GITMO and prosecute everyone, including the vice president, for what happened at Abu Ghraib. You claim people hate us for our freedom out of one side of your face and run secret prisons and military tribunals out of the other. Don't say one thing and do another.
• Make alternate energy the primary front on the war on terror. Which you should have done the day after 9-11. Let American ingenuity work on that problem and in 10 years we could kiss off foreign oil.
• Saudia Arabia is the biggest source of terrorists and terror financing. Stop holding hands with the biggest enemies we have outside the US.
• Stop spying on Americans. If al-Qeida is calling someone in the US, why are you pinpointing where the call is coming from and sending some mofo's to pop a cap in their ass? We don't want to monitor terrorists, we don't give a crap about understanding them, just f***ing kill them. Got it? Bang. Dead. That should be simple enough even for Bush to understand.
• We can't win this on our own. We need the cooperation of foreign governments and that means not acting like the global dickwad.

Unfortunately, the right wing's stupidity got us into this but it isn't going to get us out.