MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

RBT's been busy doing things on the Sig Other's honey do list. Also RBT's been helping some other bloggers re the MSM/AP's shilling for the enemy in the War of Information.

RBT sent the following comment to Curt of Flopping Aces re his continuing reports on the Six Sunnis Burning Story.

OK life is difficult for everyone in Iraq. The bottom line is the AP needs to get the facts straight. Either we have six charred bodies and six burned mosque or we don't. If we don't, the original AP posts need to be clarified, retracted, or modified with appropriate disclosures and not deletions with no comment or explanation. This AP official police source has been attributed to in over sixty previous AP wire stories.

So why is this SO important? What's the big deal as others have written? It goes to the very the credibility of AP and its sources of information. The American people deserve to know if their presumed "trusted" sources of info, are being duped by the enemy or the partisan insurgents trying to shape the news in the War of Information.

Why? As noted by Armed Liberal, these perceptions are driving public policy:

But the perception of the city changed. Policies changed as a result - policies that may or may not have been good ones.

In Iraq the stakes are much higher. But the mechanisms we're using to sort them out really are no different. . .

RBT

*****

Curt

Hey did you see the follow-up piece by Armed Liberal on the perception thing I linked to this morning?

[Edited from original]- A friendly source who nails me all the time about my street pontifications w/o references/sources actually wrote a reasoned piece [Earlier this year] along the lines of what Armed Liberal was saying when it comes to the relative risk/violence in Iraq when put in frames of reference that we all can understand. . .

Armed Liberal:

In a few small pockets, for a few years, yes. But the vast majority of people in Los Angeles - people like me - drove throughout the city, ate in restaurants throughout the city (three of my favorites are in South Central and two in East LA).

But the perception of the city changed. Policies changed as a result - policies that may or may not have been good ones.

In Iraq the stakes are much higher. But the mechanisms we're using to sort them out really are no different. Wouldn't it be nice if they were?

[...]

Read More

Here's a thought knowing how media savy the enemy is. We all know that there are many regions in Iraq that have some degree of stability without the daily MSM din of "boom-boom" reports.

Granted the Shiia/Sunnia are now duking it out for relative political power that was sparked off by AQ/ Zarqawi with the bombing of the Golden Mosque. These religious/sectarian/tribal feuds go back a 1000 years. Saddam was ruthlessly keeping them all in check.

BTW the Sunnis probably have the most to lose if the US pulls out. Why do you suppose the Saudis are sending "insurgents" and tons of money into Iraq to help the minority Sunnis? Good case for partitioning the country, sealing the borders with Iran and Syria, and establishing an oil trust until the sectarian violence dies down after they get tired of fighting each other.

Since perception is everything and the enemy knows it can't win on the battlefield, it must play to the US home front to weaken the political will and support of the American people. A majority of the MSM does it's talking head shots and reports from the Green Zone, hence the concentration of the video media there.

If you were the enemy with limited resources what better place to concentrate your efforts than in front of the world's cameras!

I think I've used this trite analogy here before. Would a battlefield commander ever allow the enemy to gain air superiority over the battlefield? Hell no! Well in the war of information the Bush administration and the Pentagon has allowed this to occur.

Thus the argument can be made, it's not the presence of the US military that causing the violence but the intense concentration of the MSM in Baghdad. And further the enemy can force leverage its suicide brigades by hyping actual events.

The MSM and the AP because of their current state of BDS are unwittingly becoming the conduit to the world of the enemy's disinformation operation.

This is where I think Armed Liberal is dead on the mark with his latest thoughts. Think of the media antenna farms around the courthouse during the OJ trial? Do you see where I'm going with this hyper-focus of the media's cameras?

This is where the Blogos has the power to reign in the MSM. Once people realize their presumed/trusted sources of objective information are flawed, the MSM's house of cards will tumble e.g. the death knell of the meme, Bush Lied. People Died! Read the links to other posts by Ray Robison, Mark Eichenlaub, Scott Malenzek and many others who have each seen a different part of this elephant in the room.

This is why what we here, the Army of Davids, are collectively doing is crucial to winning the GWOT. We all recognize the common threat from Islamofascism and are self-initiating spontaneous order in response to this threat.

BTW this is the key to toppling the regime of the Mad Mullahs of Iran. In the intense light of the free world they will melt away like the Wicked Witch of the East did in the Wizard of OZ. There is no moral equivalence of Islamofascism.

The Mullahs can't withstand the outing of the Great Lie that Islamofascist ideology is advancing that is in part filling the political vacuum left after the fall of Communism and Nazism before that with the scapegoating of the West for all of its ills.

An ideology that ignores/rejects the universal truth of the free will of men and women is destined to fail as it can't provide for the needs, wants, and desires of its followers. Further its leaders become corrupt from absolute power.