Untitled Document
In more than 3 years of war, there has never been a positive citing
of alleged terror mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi. This has led many to believe
that he is merely a creation of Pentagon propagandists working with their agents
in the western press. Colonel Derek Harvey strengthened those suspicions
last week when he admitted in a Washington Post article that the military intentionally
“enlarged Zarqawi’s caricature” to create the impression that
the ongoing struggle against occupation was really a fight against terrorism.
But, that is not the case. As Harvey notes, “The long term threat is not
Zarqawi or religious extremists, but former regime types and their friends”.
The Pentagon has tried to discredit Col. Harvey, but the damage has already
been done. The mask has been removed from the War Dept’s rather ineffective
black-op, and the American public has a great opportunity to see the amount
of energy that goes into fabricating a narrative to support an unpopular war.
The Zarqawi-myth is strikingly different from other examples of Pentagon propaganda.
The Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman stories both followed a familiar pattern of
exaggerating American bravery to shore up support on the home-front. This type
of propaganda is harmless and can be expected to appear in virtually any conflict.
So too, there’s nothing unusual about the Pentagon’s attempts to
distance itself from its actions which resulted in the needless (but predictable)
deaths of innocent civilians, like the bombing of wedding parties or the recent
rampage in Haditha where a number Iraqi noncombatants were killed. All this
is par for the course.
The Zarqawi case is vastly different from these traditional forms of
propaganda. It is information-warfare aimed exclusively at the American people
with the intention of manipulating their perceptions. It builds the case for
war out of whole cloth. Zarqawi has become the central justification for the
ongoing occupation; a threatening, spectral figure who embodies the evils of
terrorism. His image has overshadowed the obvious self-serving motives which
led to the invasion and the subsequent destruction of Iraqi society.
Undoubtedly, many of the generals who are calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation
must be uncomfortable with this deliberate effort to deceive the American people.
Not surprisingly, support for the war has eroded in direct proportion to the
administration’s loss of credibility. The lies simply haven’t helped
at all. The exposing of Zarqawi is bound to further erode whatever small amount
of faith still remains in government’s trustworthiness.
The influence of foreign fighters in Iraq has always been trivial. In the sieges
of Falluja and Tel Afar less than 3% of those captured were non-Iraqis, and
even those figures are in doubt. Never the less, a disproportionate number of
articles appearing in the media have focused on uncorroborated claims of suicide
bombings, beheadings, etc in an attempt to demonize an enemy that is mostly
a Pentagon invention. The lesson we draw from this is powerful; nothing the
military says can be trusted.
The civilian leadership, particularly Donald Rumsfeld, who we expect has authored
many of these clever propaganda-schemes, should consider now whether the damage
to their credibility has been worth the small gains they may have made in hoodwinking
the public. It may be altruistic to think that “honesty is the best policy”,
but clearly, deception as policy has some glaring shortcomings as support for
the war continues to diminish.
The media’s role in facilitating the Zarqawi charade cannot be overstated.
New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins has been singled out for running a dubious
letter from Zarqawi “boasting of suicide attacks” on the front page
of the Times. Filkins sheepishly admitted that he was “skeptical”
about the letter but that didn’t stop him (or 1,400 newspapers across
the world) from using the piece to spread unsubstantiated claims about an imaginary
Muslim terrorist.
Filkins, of course, is a very bright guy and knew that he was being used to
promote the racist themes that have engendered greater suspicion of Muslims
and fueled public hysteria. Still, Filkins is just one small cog in the mighty
corporate propaganda-matrix which spews out anti-Arab hatred on a daily basis.
Zarqawi is merely a way of vilifying the people who occupy the lands which possess
the resources required to maintain western prosperity.
In my own research, I have spend a few evenings going over hundreds of articles
on Zarqawi to find anything that might confirm his existence. As noted earlier,
there are no reliable eyewitness accounts. What we find instead, is sometimes
as many as 2,200 articles appearing on any given day pointing to Zarqawi’s
involvement in a bombing without any tangible proof of his authenticity.
The news has simply become another “faith based” operation like
the Bush administration.
Zarqawi-related news is devoid of any factual content. The accepted policy
of the news agencies (without exception) is to reiterate the same Pentagon talking
points, suspicions, and baseless claims as their peers. This gives us some insight
into the collaborative relationship between the corporate media and their allies
in the defense establishment. The Pentagon’s apparitions immediately become
part of the national dialogue completely unchallenged by anyone in the news
industry.
We should not expect that the Zarqawi myth will disappear anytime soon. The
Bush administration has demonstrated a stubborn determination to cling to their
fantasies no matter how threadbare they become. Besides, as Brigadier-General
Mark Kimmitt noted, “The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful
information campaign to date”.
Indeed, it probably is.