PROPAGANDA WATCH

Counterpunch: The Hydra's New Head:
Propagandists and Selling the US-Iraq War

Just as weapons have gotten "smarter," so too has the military gotten more sophisticated about how to use the media to meet military objectives.

-- Jerry Broeckert, Lt. Col., public affairs officer in the US Marines Corps. [1]

As the fog of war lifts, the propaganda model followed by the United States to sell the US-Iraq War is now clear, and the best way to understand this campaign is to consider it as psychological warfare against the US population [2]. From the beginning, the propagandists opted for a "sports show" metaphor as the overt image for this campaign. There are numerous features of this propaganda campaign that are worth examining since they are innovations, and sometimes contravene previously held assumptions about such campaigns. There remain questions about its long-term effectiveness, and whether the same formula can ever be used again.

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