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Pentagon Reveals News Correction Unit
Jonas Wisser writes "BBC is reporting that a newly created Pentagon unit has a mandate to fight 'inaccurate' news stories. From the article: 'The Pentagon has set up a new unit to focus on promoting its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet. [...] A Pentagon memo seen by the Associated Press news agency said the new unit will "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and aim to "correct the record". A spokesman said the unit would monitor media such as weblogs and would also employ "surrogates", or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.'"
1984 called... It wants it's news story back.
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
Well, obviously this is a blatant attempt to . Anyone can see that!
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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President Bush has said recently that terror groups were trying to influence public opinion in the US, describing their efforts as the "war of ideas"
What, are we afraid of ideas? Is a war of guns and bombs better? If the people of the world are trying to influence our thinking, should we ignore them or should we listen? Who knows better about the problems of their part of the world than them? Do the Generals in the Pentagon know whats better for people across the world than their own leaders?
I, for one, have been plagued by crimethink. Historically I have been unable to bellyfeel the blackwhite of this administration. No longer! May this glorious new program free us *all* from the perils of oldthink!
Correct the misunderstanding that Iraq did not have WMD
Correct the misunderstanding that the Iraq war did not actually end when GB said it did
Correct the misunderstanding that Iraq is not a nice place to be now
Correct the misunderstanding that several US interrogation techniques are actually torture
Corrent the misunderstanding that there are not hordes of rabid terrorists queueing up to kill each and every last one of us
And we used to laugh at the attempts of TAS to 'enlighten us'
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
This rapid walk away from democracy in the name of democracy is frightning .
Has there been any instance in our nation's military history where we've won a war without a successful propaganda effort? From the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to WWII and Vietnam, we have won wars where propaganda was relatively successful and lost when it was not.
People who think that the military doing propaganda is wrong/evil/unprecedented have never taken an honest look at history.
Get over it people, this is not 1984, this is trying to do a much scaled back version of what we have always done in the past.
FTFA:
``The Bush administration does not believe the true picture of events in Iraq has been made public, the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says.''
Well, I don't believe so, either. If the true picture had been made public right from the beginning, popular support for the war would probably have been so low that the government wouldn't have dared to go to war in the first place.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This has been a great eight years! I always wanted to know what it was like to live in China, and now we keep getting closer every day! :)
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Is that what it'll take for people to wake up?
It's getting pretty insanely ridiculous. Our government runs military detention camps in other totalitarian regimes, simply to skirt the law requiring trials in America. Congress has allowed our spy agencies to watch American citizens without probable cause. The Executive branch has condoned and practiced torture of untried suspects -- torture to any person with senses intact, which the perpetrators would never submit to themselves -- and half of the American public has gladly cheered them on.
Now we've suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus and given the President the power to deploy troops domestically. Is it really any surprise there are agencies paid with our tax money to spread pro-government propaganda?
The only thing surprising is that so many Americans are still looking up with worshipful puppy eyes -- at the leaders who pretend to protect them while stealing their wealth, liberty, and lives.
And to think they criticised Hugo Chavez for using government funds to promote his own social policies. Talk about not seeing the beam in their own eyes.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Parent post refs uncountry. Poster unbellyfeels war crimethinkwise. Doubleplusungood. Rectify.
Lemon curry???
Well, you don't need to make up "the Marines bombed your house and killed your sister, father, and daughter. Join us in fighting them!" People aren't swarming to fight the US so much because of made-up stuff, but because there are about 150,000 armed-to-the-teeth foreign military, and a few tens of thousands of foreign paramilitary, killing their fellow Iraqis every day, with complete immunity from Iraqi law. It's true that if all Iraqis laid down their arms and did exactly what the foreign occupiers told them to, without hesitation or complaint, with averted eyes and a cowed demeanor, no one would be shot, but there's that pesky "pride" thing that, though a virtue in Americans, is a character flaw in everyone else on the planet.
Well, to be fair, the West has financed and armed many of the corrupt dictators that kept their economies in a state of, well, shit. It's not as if they were free nations that decided to hate us because we were free. Saddam was put in charge by Britain. Other examples abound. No, I'm not saying "the west is evil," only that part of their list of grievances against us is that we have supported dictators in their countries, and actually impeded democracy. See Iran as an example. We overthrew their democracy and installed a dictator--somehow, though they hate us, I don't think it's because of our freedom. No, I don't think their nations would blossom into post-Enlightenment bliss if we pulled our money and influence out, but we have been a very prominent part of the problem for about a century. Even if the problem would have existed without us (as it probably would have), that doesn't negate the fact that we have dirt up to the elbow.
You're quite right - taken of itself this isn't a huge deal outside of a third world dictatorship.
But coming in after the Patriot Acts One and Two, after suspension of right to trial, waltzing in after allowing for the extradition of people (including American citizens) to 'detention camps' in countries that happen to have lax laws when its comes to torture, coming in after Bush and his whole fucking government lied through their teeth about the reasons for the illegal invasion and continued occupation of Iraq, bouncing along after stolen elections, skipping along to the the tune of "warrentless wiretapping" and getting down to the beat of "corporate kickbacks for Bush's buddies" - ya just gotta sit back and wonder if maybe its symptomatic of a government gone horribly wrong.