Propaganda in Iraq?

The propaganda story.

I don't want to harp on it, but I don't want to ignore it either.

Here's the story- The L.A. Times reported that "As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military 'information operations' troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor..."

It further states that "Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and... [are] designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military."

Basically the same sleazy media manipulation practices that gave us Armstrong Williams and Jeff Gannon here in the U.S. are at work in Iraq.

My take on all this... Sadly, this is hardly the most offensive story to come out of the war. It's not even by far the most offensive in this week alone. Certainly I would prefer the use of media promotion to win a war rather than bullets and bombs. Look, I know winning over the 'hearts and minds' of the people in that area is key to victory. So I have no problem in theory with the U.S. military wanting the local papers in Iraq to write about progress where it can be found. And if certain troops want to write their own takes on the war and have them published, well that's fine. I encourage soldiers to communicate whatever message they want. The problem is, of course, that it's not as wholesome as all that. This isn't like when we went into Afghanistan and dropped leaflets down to explain why we were there. I am all for that.

The issue here is that the military was paying the newspaper to print this information. That is propaganda, pure and simple. The fact that the military went through such efforts to mask their role in 'planting' these stories shows that they knew this was scandalous. Of all the ways they could have gone about seeking a more positive appearance in the press, they chose the least ethical. To build a democracy there and simultaneously undermine the basics of a free and independent press is hypocrisy.

In short, it's not the worst thing we've done, but still counterproductive to our stated goals in Iraq.

PS- After the Judy Miller/Scooter Libby debacle, someone should tell the New York Times that it's incredibly ironic for them to be covering this story. We still have problems with a press free from government influence here in the States too. The Times editors, unfortunately, learned that lesson recently the hard way.