The question at hand in Part 3 is whether Osama’s Lesson 18 is working on the Gitmo, prison torture, Koran abuse story line in MSM that is now conventional wisdom. Will the US be forced to change its war-fighting behavior? Will Osama’s guys be able to shut down Gitmo, cause the US to lose face or otherwise disrupt US prisoner operations enough to give jihadists a greater advantage? Let’s review:
1) Newsweek kicked off this latest round with the wrong-headed “Koran-in-the-can” story that triggered pre-arranged rent-a-thugs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world to riot – with some reportedly killed – burn flags and otherwise create the impression that it was the US that was willfully descreting their religious book and is to blame for their ignorance, poverty, twisted self-esteem, depravity and debased condition! The 24-7 world media used images and rhetoric from this mayhem and lack of journalistic precision for days and days. Newsweek stood like a jack-ass in a hail storm for a spell for its reporting techniques and editing decisions. (QN) Ouch! Particularly when it had to retract the story because its “source” recanted, and then later May 26 when the guy who alleged the Koran in the can in the first place recanted. (Malkin, MSNBC, MS) (Editor’s aside: Authorities never offered confirmation of precisely who and how many actually died by the way, but the deaths from the rioting were widely reported and believed. Of course, no deaths would mean the MSM narrative was wrong and that this outrage was all so much posing by a clever and deceitful enemy.)
2) These stories and political focus in the 24-7 media world, put bureaucratic wheels in motion to manage the situation. The Pentagon dispatched a general officer to run this down so the internal prison procedures were transparent. Gen Hood had a briefing here, and on June 4 issued a report that the Dod was handling the Koran respectfully. The care the DoD had paid to prisoner rights was obvious, but the facts never caught up with the hot button words: toilet, urine, menstrual blood. In fact, had reporters looked they could have used a policy directive issued in Jan 03 to place in proper context how nit-picky the DoD was about the religious sensibilities of the killers, perverts and deviants who had sworn jihad against America and were being held not executed. Still the news of this investigation was dominated by the words urine and Koran in the headlines worldwide.
3) The Gitmo Koran abuse, prison torture story line fit neatly with the existing and well-financed and well-organized campaign by the ACLU, Human Rights First, Amnesty International and their SDE and MSM enablers: the US is torturing prisoners it holds illegally and secretly moving them around the world to prisons where they can be tortured or executed. The Pulitzer’s favorite bloviator Tom Friedman says close Gitmo because of all the bad press being created by Human Rights First’s Michael Posner. The NYT May 31 had a page one story about the CIA using a private jet service for the rendition program, which was widely reported as a shadowy technique that is somehow unfairly sneaking captured terrorists around where their presence will help the war against jihad best. (ST, TO )
4) Mouthy Sen. Biden, the tiresome Jimmy Carter and other such anti-jihadists from the D-opposition weighed in: close Gitmo. Then it was the turn for R-weasel Sen. Martinez to call for Gitmo's closing. Martinez is quite the guy: his last helpful contribution to public discourse in Media-ville was to give seriel D-leaker Sen. Harkin a staffer's inept briefing memo and set off the GOP talking points sideshow during Shiavo. A few wise heads (Max Boot) in the free press got the Gitmo Koran story right. Fox News had one story about psych warfare. (TS, RWN, IP) This so-called prisoner abuse, torture narrative was now conventional wisdom. In an interview it appeared Bush gave some daylight to the possibility that he might decide to close Gitmo. (Malkin, AP, UKT) Did the anti-war campaign engineered by his old baseball partner, Tom Bernstein (HRF, CP, IFM) finally get to him? Now the question is: Will Bush 43 fold?
Quillnews observations: Had the shadow world of lies and half truths taught in Osama’s Lesson 18 in fact changed the public calculus in Media-ville enough so that – in real life – Bush had to weigh whether the value of the prison for incarcerating killers and obtaining real information until further notice was no longer worth the domestic political cost? This is what free people choose political figures like presidents to decide. And in this case, whatever good reasons may exist to close Gitmo or revise policy will be overshadowed by the political environment in which a presidential decision is made. (Belgravia Dispatch) The effectiveness of Osama’s Lesson 18 that jihadists use lies, deception, misinformation and the freedoms of our political and legal processes as psy-ops ammo in their anti-American war has become vividly apparent. The jihadist campaign and their “useful idiot” US enablers had caused a perception to emerge that the President of the US – Osama’s enemy – might change US war fighting behavior on his own without the prior input of his war fighters. This has enabled our enemies to see our leaders can be tricked by Lesson 18 to clip the wings of our warriors. This emboldens the enemies of freedom. Who says psy-ops don’t work?
Quillnews question: Will the editors and reporters hired by the global information corporations to run their 24-7 print, broadcast, cable and internet “news services” learn how to properly manage the war news so that free people can take fight to the enemy without being forced to declare the MSM an enemy too? (QN) The entire crew blew this one.
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